We really enjoyed our time at the freedom camp spot at Cargills’ Road, also this morning. Unfortunately, I left Flo’s jandals at this camp and we are missing them sorely ever since. What is NZ without jandals?
Our destination for today was Hokitika. It’s a laid back small West coast town and I’ve been here a couple of times now. It’s good to hang out at the beach which always has a lot of driftwood and it’s famous for its greenstone galleries. One of the things on my “to do” list was to buy a pounamu pendant for Number 3. So we arrived in Hokitika, had yummy lunch at the Hokitika Sandwich Company and then headed towards Waewae Pounamu. Number 3 picked a hei matau as his shape but the AoE is just a tad too small to pick a pounamu for herself. In the end, Flo bought a beautiful hei matau for the eldest and a sliver of pounamu for the younger one. They both have to wait to be given the pounamu though. Pounamu has to be given or earned and that also extends to kids.
Everybody was knackered after the weight of choosing the right pounamu. So we had beach time to relax. In the later afternoon, we headed out to Hokitika Gorge to walk the loop track. Unfortunately, one of the suspension bridges is under reconstruction so now it is a 45min in and 45min return walk instead of an hour to loop around. We still managed to get to the water access and Flo had a swim in very cold water. Nobody else from our family felt the urge to go in.
The only other thing to do today was finding a camping spot. Another freedom camp at the beach seemed amazing but we didn’t have reception which Flo needs to be able to work at night. So with a heavy heart, we moved on. It was getting late by now so we pulled up at the next doc site and stayed at Lake Ianthe for the night. Luckily, the reception was okay here.
The next day, we took it slow. It had been late yesterday so we took our time in the morning. Our plan was to have lunch in Franz Josef. Shortly before we arrived there, something in our motorhome broke.
The display showed an issue with our alternator and suggested a visit to the workshop asap. Unfortunately, the West Coast of NZ is not known for its abundance of workshops for motorhomes. Feeling very insecure and unhappy, we stopped and had lunch in Franz Josef. Of course, it was Saturday as well. The only mechanic in town was out and about and would be back at 7pm. Luckily, he was reachable via phone. After the phone call, we had a new plan: The mechanic had suggested to do everything normally today but get as far as we could towards Wanaka as our car would probably not start again tomorrow. With that horror scenario in mind, we had a nap at Lake Matheson (it was too windy anyway) and tried to find a different mechanic in Fox Glacier. The lovely mechanic in Fox Glacier said the same thing though so we drove on. We had the same issue as last night, we just couldn’t find a freedom camp or doc site that had enough reception for a stable connection.
In the end, we drove until 7pm (felt like it) and ended up on the Top 10 holiday park in Haast on the last powered site they had available for the night. We rolled onto the site and Timmy…stopped working.
We had completely drained the battery which didn’t recharge anymore while driving. Very sad and unsure of what to do now while we are living in a gigantic brick, we put the shore power into the motorhome. To our surprise, the battery started charging again! Shore power was our new way to charge the starter battery, now that the alternator had stopped working! We have a chance to charge the battery and then get to Wanaka tomorrow! Using Sunday to limp to Wanaka and then pin our hope on one of the mechanics in Wanaka! We have found our silver lining!
You must be logged in to post a comment.