Our coldest night so far!

Friday 18 July

Despite the electric heater blowing gently all night - we woke up early and chilly on Friday morning. Tried to switch on the diesel heater again, but still no dice. Used bottled water for tea & coffee, washing our teeth and even flushing the loo as the water pump wasn’t ready to work yet! At this point we believed the Yahoo forecast which said it had gone down to -3*C - it was only later we discovered that Kokonga had registered -9.2*C by dawn!

With a hard glittery frost all around we waited until after 11am to leave so that any ice on the roads should have melted, and headed off through amazing landscapes to Hyde, Middlemarch and on to Mosgiel. The only thing open in Hyde was the McKeown's Card Fuel station so we filled up there (ignore the fact its a red can, they don't make diesel yellow in less than 20litre sizes.

The Pig Route to Mosgiel was quite stunning - through wide open landscapes, rolling hills, quite steep hills, littered with rocky outcrops like mini tors - but not a pig in sight (though lots of sheep & cows).

We made a stop at the dump station at Mosgiel to empty our grey & black water - except the grey water pipe was partially blocked with a chunk of ice… even though it was after 1pm and the sun was shining!!!

The route onwards to Dunedin was even more challenging with long steep hills both up and down until we finally parked up in the NZMCA site at Woodhaugh. We giggled to see that our calendar and our maps had been talking to each other and the map showed "Dunedin - Fernandi arrive in; All day"!

Had a quick lunch in Banjo, Louis went for a swim, I did a supermarket shop then in the evening we dropped into town to see the Fernandi, Kate & Trevor who had all just flown down from Auckland for Abby Fernandes’ belated 21st birthday party. Lots of catching up, kids making fab decor for the party, cheese & crackers, a fun evening and a dearth of photos recording the event… I’m not sure what came over me!! 😮