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Tuesday 11 March

Travel day - in a howling gale!

On an early morning loo run I swung my phone torch around to see if I could spot any nighttime bunnies and as I swung it back to my path I found I was about to trip over a wee hedgehog - so cute!

We woke to funky clouds and quite a strong breeze. Fearing the wind was only going to be getting wilder as the day progressed we packed up quite quickly and set off cautiously for Cromwell and thence Alexandra under the most stunning cloudy skies. We pulled out of the space very cautiously as the day before a neighbouring caravan had grounded the A frame in the dip.

Cheese scones for morning tea in Cromwell then a glitch - after a fatal crash the night before the bridge was closed for an hour or so for investigators to check & remove the vehicle. Eventually we got the green light to cross and were on our way… which was fortunate as there are so few main roads in NZ that the two alternative routes would have taken 3-4 hours and around 200km! We were sad to learn a few days later that there was a suspicion that the crash may have been an intentional suicide. Such an awful way to go and as ever, you have to feel for the emergency services involved.

Turning onto Golden Road we could just spot the Lucky Red House nestling in the hillside ahead. All the new houses in this area have a 12 colour palette from which to choose and the rusty red which was chosen for this house is rather fab. The locals nicknamed it Lucky Red because a tornado rushed through the area a few years previously, taking off one neighbour's roof and ripping up another neighbour's barn/garage - but Lucky Red escaped unscathed.

We dropped off Banjo at Jonny & Debs’ place and drove back to Alexandra so Louis could do a swim and I could attempt to replace my shredded denim shorts at the op shops (spoiler alert - came back with 2 pairs of denim crop jeans, a long sleeve T and an adorable lime green silk top - oops!)

Back at the Lucky Red House we chilled with the Websters, watched the harriers soaring on the wind and two skinny feral cats prowling in the grass while Jonny made us a delicious dinner of pulled pork tacos. Yum! Note my lovely new green top at the dinner table - it smelled clean so I broke the op shop rule and wore it without washing it!