The South Island Exploration Begins
Bright and early on the morning of Feb 1/11, you find Glen and I waiting at the top of the dock for our taxi to take us to the Auckland airport where we will be whisked off, by Jet Star Air, down to Christchurch on the south island of New Zealand, about 1/3 of the way down the east coast. We are met by the Tui Camper Rental people (we rented our camper from them) and after a briefing on the operation of our new mode of transportation/accommodation, we are on our way. Groceries are the first order, then finding our first camp site. Happily the GPS unit Glen received for Christmas works like magic and we don't even get lost a little bit! The camp site is "right on the beach" (20 min walk) and pretty devoid of trees (think open sports field), but the grass is green and we are there early in the day so a walk to the beach is a good use of time. We've rented a four person sleeper, with toilet/shower, kitchen/dinette so it is pretty spacious, but the bathroom is going to be more trouble than good, so we use the public facilities - toilets and showers - and will continue to do so for the balance of our trip. One thing NZ camp grounds have is very nice facilities as camping is "the" thing to do here. We've also splurged and rented a BBQ for our time out and it is quite the contraption - basically a frying pan screwed on to the top of a propane bottle. So "fried" steak is our first meal on the road and it is not too bad!
Now we probably should have taken a spin around down town Christchurch, but the rental gals said it was still quite a mess from the earth quake/s and not being "demolition gawkers" we decided to give it a pass. So that puts us two days ahead of schedule already. As we head out the next day we find that the distances are not really so vast as we were imagining (Canadian Prairies type!) and by days end, we are actually another day ahead of ourselves. But that's O.K. there will probably be somewhere down here that we are going to really appreciate the fact that we have a time buffer as we will want to stay longer. Now the question becomes…..How much info do I bore you all with, the details (that I will need in order to remember our wonderful time) or the summary (so you don't fall off your chairs - asleep - and hurt yourselves)? Compromise!
Day 2 - Christchurch to Peel Forest - Man it is windy along the coast, has to be blowing 40 kts (glad we aren't on the boat), Glen has a fun time keeping the house on the road. Oh yeah, they drive on the left side of the road here and this unit is a standard! Take a moment and imagine having to learn how to shift gears and work the clutch left footed!!!!! Glen is a pro - I need not say more. Anyway, lots of lovely flat farm land filled with either sheep or dairy cows and fenced by these lovely tall rows of trees ('cause it's so flippin' windy the cows would blow off the field if it was barbed wire!). Peel Forest is inland and kind of their foothills. Our camp site is lovely, with nice trees and posh facilities and a couple of nature walks. We chose a walk of 30 min (our kind of exercise) and head off to enjoy the forest. No nasty creatures in NZ, no snakes, bears, poison ivy - nothing scary at all (unless you have a bunny phobia!). We fry chicken on the BBQ - life is good.
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