NZ part 1

Last night we made it back to good old Oz, with a healthy respect for the upcoming customs inspection. To add to the excitement, they were filming Border Security at the Airport, so those of us with hair fixed it up, the rest of us just adjusted our hats, and strode purposefully to the 'special table' as we decided to declare all our camping gear. With barely a trivial question, we were on our way through- no glove, no cough, no disgusted customs worker pawing through your dirty jocks, no nothing... What a bust.. Border Security my ass!

All this was bought on by our 2 week traipse about New Zealand, or the breeding ground of all campervans on the face of Planet Earth, or Middle Earth for the freakish types... damn they have some vans over there, and they still can't overpower/pass our asthmatic 1.3l auto Starlet. They just ponder along, often on the wrong side of the road and generally annoy all and sundry on the premise of 'having a holiday'. Well I'm having a holiday, and you're in my GODDAMN way!!

Anyway, we departed Christchurch in an upwardly fashion, and cruised around the island (South, that is) in an anticlockwise fashion and this is some of the things we got to see (in a little bit of a jumbled order)


You can see by the size of the fork, the size of the Greenlip Mussels that we pulled off the rock at a place we camped for the night... Thats a steak, not a mussel, they were so good. And we got cockles/coquille at another beach, and that was another dinner! I love getting fresh stuff out of the ocean, makes you feel all Robinson Crusoe or something...

Think back to the first thing that you looked at when you woke up this morning.. Was it your alarm clock? This is what we saw. Tough, eh?!

This jetty cracked me up. It just submerged into the water. Not sure how long that would last under water, and the tide wasn't that huge around here... So I think if you tie up on the end at low tide, you could come back to find your boat a bit drowned, and you *are* going to get wet feet.

Yeah, its a rental. We rearranged the underside of it a few times as well, those floor pans are pretty soft eh, the dings stomped right back out :) Let alone the huge chip on the windscreen (a truck, not our fault) the 3 hub caps that parted company on the Mt Hutt road /track, the new tyres that now look decidedly second hand due in no small part to the lack of straight roads on the island, and the poor suspension/gearbox/door sills and floorpan that put up with out concerted 'use' for 14 pleasant days. Whilst it didn't go up real well, nor did it go down or around particularly well, it did go and go and go, so thanks 'rental car company!'

Stinky Seal, but I guess when you eat fish for every meal of your life, you're breath would be a few mentos off flash...

The Pub in which we stayed, and the view off the balcony. The cups aren't the latest in NZ bar accessories, more like the $1 specials we drink our duty free liquor from!

When you have a food allergy in NZ, this is what you get to eat a whole lot of. Em ate them too, to make me feel better...

Able Tasman National Park. Go there. 'Nuff said.

Sandwich time on another typical NZ beach. Rocks, grey sand and some great surf the whole island around! I'm keen to get back there with a bike and a board!

Lunch in Kaikoura. If you notice the cups, and then believe me that the white building in the distance is the pub we stayed at (See above), you can join the dots...

Em giving the double Pluggers a red hot go, climbing down a deceptively large cliffy hill thing to go and see the seals, instead of standing with the smelly Euro's on the top of the hill with their bus tour and binoculars. Get amongst it people!!

More to come.

Grover has saved me writing about Saturday's ride, so check out his write up here, its quite amusing!