The good new is - we no longer smell the cow pie that was stuck to the bottom of our motorhome. The bad new is - it was cloudy and raining all day. It was raining at night but as we were leaving the campground the sun came out only to disappear in the clouds again.
We started out from Geraldine this morning after a nice breakfast - eggs, cereal and nice New Zealand coffee. Cleaned up, drained all the waste and filled up with fresh water. Grumpy (his name not his nature), the owner of the campground, gave us a tip. He suggested we empty the waste in he morning but fill up with fresh water at our destination, this way we don't have to carry extra weight and save fuel. I am sure that is good strategy but I think the few cents we would save in fuel are not worth the inconvenience of running out of water. So far the average mileage we are getting according to the vehicle computer is 11.41 liters per 100 km. We will see what it is is when I fill up and calculate it.
We headed out West to lake Tekapo and then to lake Pukaki. When we started out the landscape went from flat green farmland to rolling hills and shortly after that to a landscape almost identical to the area between Kamloops and Cash Creek, dry mountainous or hilly landscape with no trees. At times it felt like we were driving home to 100 Mile House from one our trips to Kamloops.
Lake Tekapo and Pukaki are glacial lakes with turquoise water and a beautiful mountainous background. However, due to the cloudy and rainy weather we did see part of the lake but no mountains. The spectacular view of Mt. Cook I saw online and in magazines was not available today. We took a drive up a view point, took some pictures and that was it. After some inquiries about he weather forecast we decide we will not hang around there and head south, back to the Pacific Ocean. We headed to see the famous Moreaki Boulders and hopefully some yellow eyed penguins. This is where we are now. We tried to find a Freedom Camping site but could not find it so we eventually pulled into a paid Moreaki Holiday Park (RV campground). We will go see the boulders tomorrow.
I think that my brain finally switched to the driving on the wrong side of the road because it was almost second nature today. I also got the feel for the motorhome, so now I am not constantly checking the rear view mirror to see how close I am to the edge of the road and am actually enjoying some of the scenery. We did come close to a oncoming car when I was trying to open a window for Jana as she was trying to take a picture of the many sheep herds. There is sheep everywhere - brown ones, light colored ones with dark heads, with full coat and without a coat. There is something peaceful about sheep - later on we will pull over and take some nice pictures.
Once we got to the coast we came to a town and went to get a few groceries. So far we have been shopping at Countdown - similar to Save-on-foods but more European. Even the smell in the store is similar to what it is in the stores in Europe, I think it is the detergents that make it smell like that. The town we were in was called Oamaru, very nice town. If it wasn't pouring I would have taken some pictures.
As we were driving along today I was comparing what I saw and experienced so far to Canada. I am certainly enjoying New Zealand but when one lives in a place like BC, it is hard to see sights that will trump that. But then we only had two days here and haven't seen a whole lot yet.
I am very happy and pleased how everything is going so far, Phillip and Michael are fun to be with, no complaining about driving or anything. It is helpful to have a couple of laptops that keep them entertained on some of the longer (or shorter) drives. I am sure we will have many nice memories from this trip.
Well I think I will wrap it up for tonight. I am looking forward to tomorrow and what new sights, smells and experiences it will bring.
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment