A Long time since an update
Well the last update I gave was when we had arrived in Wanaka and set up camp for the day. Since then we have visited Queenstown, for 3 days where we were put up in the Millennium Hotel. It was a very VERY good thing we were staying in a hotel as on our way to the local New World the van sprung a leak. Unbeknownst to us at that particular moment was that one of the radiator hoses connected to the engine had a split in it and was leaking fluid. After a lot of hissing and engine over heating we finally got back to the hotel. I immediately started looking for mechanics in the area, (not a whole lot let me tell you in Queenstown!) I had eventually compiled a list of names which I set about contacting, the first who hung up on me pretty rudely (Alpine Auto, Queenstown!) but I got through eventually to Fusion Auto and spoke to Daniel. This guy gave me more help in 5 minutes over the phone than any of the others had. Bearing in mind all our disasters happen on a Friday night or Saturday morning (typical) so we had low expectations of finding somewhere open. He arranged for us to get to his workshop early Saturday morning and hopefully get it sorted. So we left for his place the next morning at 8am…but our van only made it half way before overheating and we had to pull over to the side of the road or risk major damage. The radiator was completely empty at this stage, not good. We had some mixed communications and were meant to be AT the mechanics at 8am, so we had to wait till Sunday morning as he had plans for the day (I was annoyed at the time but he explained the next morning so it was all ok, turns out he had a one off opportunity to buy a specific dog puppy he had been looking for in Christchurch that morning so he had to leave ASAP) so we sucked it up, left the van at the side of the road for the rest of the day and night until the following morning when it could be looked at. It was a long 6km walk back to the hotel, plus we had to walk it back again to the van on Sunday morning.
Anyways, long story short he called out to us roadside on Sunday morning (how many Irish mechanics would do that??) at about 9.30am where he spotted the issue (we still didn’t know what it was at this stage) and he made a temporary fix which lasted us all the way to Invercargill where I ordered the replacement hose part and fitted it myself with relative ease. So a big thank you to Daniel and Fusion Auto in Q’Town who saved out bacon and was a pretty nice guy all round.
Our last act of tourism in Queenstown was a hot air balloon ride. A 4am rise to get the go ahead for the all clear for takeoff meant we would be picked up by mini-bus at 5am from the hotels front door. Not a cheap thing to do balloon rides let me tell you. $700 for the two of us but at the end of the day we won’t be back again and certainly it isn’t something you do every day. The views were spectacular along with the finale of champagne breakfast, it all added up to a great experience. Plenty of photo’s too!
So from Queenstown, it was on to Te Anau, our base for exploring Milford Sound. I was a bit nervous about the 2 hour drive to Te Anau with our newly patched van being put to the test and we had every finger and toe crossed that it would hold until we could get the new part in Invercargill. It held fine! Te Anau is a small, lake side town which in itself has very little to do. There is a DOC aviary nearby with some native birds that are being rehabilitated before being released back into the wild so it made for a bit of a trek and view.
The following morning it was another 2 hour drive to Milford for our 10:30am cruise that I had booked. The first 90 km’s of the trip were fine, lovely motorway with level tarmac and a real shock as we thought it would be an awful road. And then the last 30km’s arrived. Windy stringy in parts steep like you’ve never seen and with a gapping chasm of a tunnel for nearly 1.5km’s it did not make for a pleasant driving experience, all the more worrying as all I could think about was the radiator hose exploding and us being in the middle of nowhere and being proper f*****! But we made it to Milford fine, and a little early. We passed the time with coffee and breakfast before boarding our cruise boat. A good mix of people on board and a bright sunny morning made for an enjoyable experience which lasted about 2 ½ hours altogether. Once over it was another 2 hour return journey back to Te Anau where we would spend another night before moving on to the larger town of Invercargill.
Invercargill is supposed to be a town of Scottish decent although we didn’t see much of that really. Our main priority was get the new radiator hose and replace the old one and be done with the whole saga that felt like it was now dragging on forever.
The part had to be over night couriered to the Mitsubishi parts dealer I rang so luckily we were there for 2 days. We went to Bluff, the claim to being the southerly most point on the southern island and completing the old saying here of “From Reinga to Bluff” which we now have completed. The next morning the repair was carried out and all went fine. Invercargill is not a great place really, nice to visit for a day but after that it gets a bit stale. From there we moved on to Dunedin, a town that looked to have a lot more going for it.
In Dunedin, we again had booked in for 2 nights as we were a fair bit ahead of schedule so had a few days to make up. The city itself is quite nice, very rustic old buildings and on our first morning there we went to the Cadbury Factory which was a sheer joy 
for obvious reasons! The weather for the two days was not the best. Heavy drizzle, rain and thunder were what we got much to our annoyance as a damp van, is a smelly van. On our second day there we went out the Otago Peninsula to visit the Royal Albatross Centre in the hope of seeing a few more of these large sea birds. The centre was a good way to while away an hour, plenty of information and a very good guide made it quite the learning experience too. We were only able to view the nesting Albatrii (made up word I know for Plural Albatross’s) as seeing as they are protected, you only get to go so close to them under DOC regulation. Still it was well worth the trip even though it was misty and not very pleasant; it at least got us out and about.
From Dunedin we moved on today to Oamaru, passing the famous Moreki Boulders along the way which I managed to get a few photo’s of while getting soaked in the process as the tide came in quite quickly. We sit here now in the Oamaru Top 10 Park listening to the rain on the roof, only light showers though but rain all the same while I type this. I’m wishing it all clears up a bit more as I’m hoping, fingers crossed, to do a helicopter flight from Mount Cook Village over the mountain of the same name which should be fantastic all the same. Well we’ll see how that goes eh?
