On the Road Again!
02 March 2009 | Opua
Sally
We're back from our month long excursion and are now heading back out on the road to show this wonderful country to Gary and Donna! We've been singing Willy's "On the Road Again" a lot lately!
Hadn't covered what we had been up to since leaving our cute little penguins in the Catlins, so will try to finish up the south island trip. We were allowed to leave "Hotel California" aka "The Assylum" but only after exploring the outbuildings with the owners car collection. He had over fifty 20's and 30's models that need a lot of work, but have potential. While walking through the old buildings, I had the unfortunate experience of putting my foot on a rotten board that gave way before I even realized what had happened. I found myself stuck with my right leg dangling below the floorboard! My jeans had scrunched up around the knee as my leg went through the board and wouldn't let me pull back up. Yikes! Finally with a little help from Glen and Jeff, I was freed but a little scraped, majorly bruised, and very embarrassed! We made a quick departure after that and headed for Christchurch.
Christchurch is said to be the most "England" like city in New Zealand. It was charming and we had fun riding a trolley car around the city center. In fact, we got to sit on the same exact bench that Queen Elizabeth sat on during her last visit here! Our visit was timed perfectly and we got to hear the bells in the big cathedral ring out at 5:00 on Sunday evening. There is a gondola that goes up the side of a mountain nearby and the view from the top was stunning. We were hoping to get to the Antarctic Center, but we ran out of time. From Christchurch, we headed north through Kaikoura, "Crayfish Capitol of New Zealand" and up into the Marlbourough Sound area - known as "wine country" down here. Of course, we just had to try a few wineries!
Our ferry crossing back to Wellington was beautiful and much calmer than the first trip. Jeff and Kathi had originally planned to leave us in Christchurch, but ended up staying with us, so the party continued up the North Island as well. We made the trip back to Opua in two days and found ourselves back on The Dorothy Marie just in time for a major storm - winds of over 40k and pouring rain. We were so glad to be home and were very happy to see everything was just as we had left it. It poured rain throughout the night, but at least we were there to empty our leak buckets! We had one day to get things cleaned up and then we were back on the road to Auckland. Gary and Donna's plane came in at 6:10AM and it is a 4 hour drive to Auckland, so we headed to the closest camp ground to the airport. We thought getting up at 7:00 for the ferry to Picton was early, but when the phone went off at 4:45AM, we went into shock! It was worth it, though, to get to see Gary and Donna - and besides they had been up for over 24 hours making their way to us (a 2 hour drive to the Liberia airport in Costa Rica, a six hour flight to LA, then a 12 hour flight from LA to Auckland). We brought them back to the boat for a much needed night of sleep and have now taken off to see some of the sights. We are currently in a camp ground in Doubtless Bay heading towards Cape Reinga. The internet in the marina area wasn't working when we got back, so I am hoping we can get internet here so get this sent out. There is another big storm due tomorrow night, so we are going back to the boat to make sure everything is okay, then we'll head out on the boat to some of our favorite anchorages.
PS - The picture is in Christchurch in front of the cable car.