A "Doh!" Kinda day

Wednesday 13 May

So lovely waking up and popping out to see the Silverstream Clydesdales in the morning - Lottie was straight over for her scritches & a smooch then mum Emily came to see what she was missing out on!

We watched some of Eurovision (first semi final from Austria, reported on by Rylan and Angela Scanlan for the BBC - saving Graham Norton for the big final on the weekend!) while we packed up & then left at 10ish as there were new visitors showing up around noon.

Our dodgy day started here… we stopped in Fairlie for a pie (steak, pumpkin & ale 🥧), some pantry essentials, fuel and a toilet stop… then totally forgot to go to the dump station! (Though we did have another royal visit from the Fairlie kitty who patrols the corner of the Main Street and bestows love on visitors to her realm so no wonder we were distracted 🩶)

Arrived at Lake Opuha for a planned 4 to 5 days visit with a half full tank of grey water, a half full toilet cassette and only one tank of fresh water! We parked up right by the lake at the top freedom camp on Hays Road and had lunch in the sun - then read that we had to be 20m from the lake so we hitched up and moved back about 16 more metres.

The lake was looking inviting so we read all the signage about boating on Lake Opuha (there was a lot!), inflated the kayak and hopped in, then realised we’d left the paddles in the tunnel boot! Hopped out, grabbed then & went off for a lovely paddle down the lake. By this time in the afternoon, the glassy stillness of the morning had given way to a fair amount of chop caused by a southerly wind so we got a tad wet from wave splashes and once we turned around we got blown back home pretty swiftly.

By the time we got back, a tree was throwing its long shadow over Banjo at 3pm and we were getting zero solar… so we had to pack everything up and move AGAIN! Hopefully we are now 20m from the lake AND in maximum sunshine for the day! ↔️☀️ Luckily we are the only people here so we have our pick of all the spots.

Went for a muddy walk (big tyre tracks often flooded - some with weirdly marbled greeny-brown water in them) then Louis BBQed a delicious flat chook for dinner while i cooked up the veggies and then we binge watched “Film Club” (from the BBC and now showing on TVNZ3) which we utterly loved ❤️📽️🎞️❤️ Aimee Lou Wood was brilliant in it, and wrote the whole thing… she’s wonderful!

A freezing cold, clear night under an incredible canopy of stars - the moon appears to be non-existent right now and this is a pretty dark sky area.