This was a few weeks back now – but the pretense for the trip was to go and get the boat we had bought off Trade Me (NZ e-bay), look at some Spoodle pups and have a look down the East coast on the way. The trip was very scenic (as is the NZ way) – the coast road goes through Picton, Blenheim, Kaikora then on down to Christchurch. On one side you have hundreds of miles of un-spoilt coastline, very few cars, plenty of seals to look at and the odd ‘greasy spoon’ type caravan, but in NZ they sell fresh crayfish covered in garlic butter as opposed to black pudding and curry sauce. On the other side of the road you have the towering snow capped mountains of the Southern Alps - it’s pretty surreal but makes for a very pleasant drive. We stopped at Kaikora on the way down – famous for its seals, whale and dolphin watching and crayfish. I would highly recommend stopping there if your ever driving up from Christchurch – very, very nice little place and a good stop to stretch your legs.
We got down to ChCh with just one speeding ticket (ah well, I’m still on my UK license so it’s pretty much just a slap on the wrist and a 40 quid fine) and no worries. We stopped for the night in a really nice camp site at Spencer Beach which had, and no exaggeration, the best free playground I have ever seen. It had about 4 flying foxes, water pumps in massive sand pits that you could make rivers and damns with, swings, monster climbing frames, slides – everything, and all for free. Just my style. The campsite was right next to the sea and the cabin could have slept 6 no probs – not bad for $80 (about 30 pounds).
So – first things first . As Chico would say ‘what time is it – Spoodle time’. We turned up to this house thinking should we/shouldn’t we. Within 5 mins we had chosen and paid for our new family member. I wont go into too much detail but his name is Bones, he likes chewing stuff, he is super cute with MASSIVE paws and he is Busters new best pal. Check out the photos on Flickr (just go to the photo page here and click on the link) for some images.
The boat also turned out to be exactly as described and, if not a bargain then a very sound buy. The guy selling it is a fishing book writer so has been very gentle with the boat and kept it in mint condition. It’s also only ever been used on fresh water (Lake Taupo) so has no sea salt damage at all. The deal was done, we hitched her up and headed home with dog and boat in tow.
The only eventful thing about getting home was very very very nearly running out of petrol – and this is from someone who is nearly always out of petrol. I have to say it was luck that saved the day. I read a sign that said ‘Blenheim 52km’ so I figured that my already on red tank could cope with that and cruised on past a couple of petrol stations. Over 100km later, and already down to 50kmh and frequent freewheeling periods to save fuel, later and I see another sign saying ‘Blenheim 52km’!!! OK – so we are in the middle of nowhere – we have seen 5 cars in the last hour, we have a boat, boy and dog in tow and there are no petrol stations outside the towns. Oh yes, and we had a monster head wind that was ruining our already terrible fuel economy. The petrol needle by this time was virtually bending on the little stopper about ¼ tank past the red. I was convinced that this was the day that it all went wrong.
Anyway – to cut an already long story short we made it to the petrol station (with a line for about 20 cars behind me as I was doing 30mph for eth last 20miles). I don’t know how big the tank is but the red light was on for over 150km!!!! Phew – Lisa was not impressed.
And that was the end of the trip – a busy weekend but the Jennings 3 are now 4 and we have a seagoing vessel at our disposal. Bring on the summer.
