Some Days Just Aren’t Your Day…

Wednesday 2 July

It all started well after an overnight in Ella & Josh’s lovely warm spare room while Banjo got sorted at DC&B, and we had lovely cuddles with Jessie & Shadow before saying our goodbyes. Tried a selfie but Jessie decided to bail - but Ella managed to wrangle them into some form of order and got some cute photos!

We met Petra for brunch in town at the adorable Little Poms which I’d spotted yesterday on our tiki tour of the city whilst Banjo & the Pajero were being sorted and turns out it was a regular haunt of Petra’s - the waitresses all greeted her so warmly! Delicious and unusual brunch options including a breakfast sandwich for me and a very funky eggs Bene for Louis. My brunch sandwich was stacked with ham hock, swiss cheese, scrambled eggs and a creamy chutney dressing. Such a lovely couple of hours catching up with Petra - always a fascinating conversation and a heart warming meet up. I told her we chose the venue because she was our favourite Little Pom, but I am not sure she appreciated that!

From there we picked up Banjo and took her for a weigh in with her new solar panels (pretty much on target - well under our GCM - but it wouldn't hurt to try and purge our inventiry a little) before setting off south again.

A wee pause in Rakaia to see the giant salmon (sadly the salmon cafe was permanently closed - an issue we come across at many seasonal tourist towns) and then a casual stop in Temuka to explore, where we met a lovely guy, Peter Vaughan, who wanted to know all about life on the road as he plans to take off in a year or so. He was fascinating - his family owned most of Long Bay until late last century, and when his father died they sold up and he chose to migrate south and take up dairy farming. With his children now grown and flown the coop, he is swatting up on caravans and towing vehicles and very keen to chat with other travellers.

Shop stop in Timaru then on to Waimate in the dark, but we knew the NZMCA there well, so set up under a hedge in total darkness and hunkered down ahead of yet another forecast rainstorm.

By this point Louis’ sciatica was in full flare up, my fragile wrist from an electric drill incident 3 weeks ago was throbbing and when we set up, our hot water appeared to fail… then we had to manage our tenants around a water leak issue at BHB and Grandma was suffering intense pain and Sara & Amy were dealing with this and calling an ambo. Incredible how everything piles up at once 🥺