November rain

Swiss coffee sucks. Italian coffee is excellent. New Zealand coffee will give Italian coffee a run for it’s money any day of the week!!
I had forgotten how fabulous a NZ flat white is (café latte). Strong coffee and milk that has a consistency that can only be described as luxurious.
Our second day Down Under started in a little café/dairy/post office. As it turns out the café is actually closed as it is “under new management and nothing has been decided on yet” warbled the lovely Tania from behind the coffee machine in the dairy/post office.
Never the less we were invited to sit down at a solitary table by the window which, had a spectacular view of the beach and of the bright red post boxes. A handy spot indeed if you were an undercover FBI agent waiting for an “unsub/perp” to come and clear their mail box. As we hadn’t eaten much for dinner the night before coupled by the fact that it was dinnertime in Europe, we were ravenous. We had a choice between pies and slices.
I of course went for the mince and cheese and Dodo had a bacon and egg pie. It was Dodo first pie in New Zealand.....pies are hot…. Dodo burnt her mouth……. what did we learn from this??? “You must always blow on the pie”
With 2 pies, 2 flat whites, orange juice and because we were feeling decadent a caramel slice we settled down to plan our day’s adventure. This is where the fun really began….. Dodo got her first taste of Kiwi hospitality……

Nothing was too much for our new BFF Tania.  She made us first class coffees, told us stories about the earthquakes , showed us pictures of her Cup Day dress  and looked up the addresses of campsites that she recommended that we checkout in Hanmer Springs the phonebook…. yes the phonebook…. remember those???
We ordered another coffee each and watched the show as the locals came in and out, buying the newspaper, collecting their mail, etc.
It was better than any of those cheesy reality shows followed by millions all over the world...... Finally we decided to move on, not before Tania buttered one of her homemade scones for us to take with us and once again produced the phone book to look up the address of the AA office in Christchurch (she even drew us a map!!!!).

We headed off back into the city to run various errands one of which was to get a car charger for our Tom Tom. We stumbled across a Bond and Bond outlet store and decided to try our luck. Once again we received stellar service. This time from an arachnophobic Cantabrian whose name I don’t recall. He served us swiftly and efficiently all the time cracking jokes that were right on the money.
Having achieved all the little things that we need to do jumped back in the Batmobile, and headed towards Hanmer Springs.
Im not kidding about the name of the camper….. check it out on the escape rentals site.
http://www.escaperentals.co.nz/vans/Batman.asp.

The drive was breath taking. As we drove along the road heading north, with more beauty on both sides than I've ever seen. I almost felt that we were intruding. Left and right there were hills and fields as far as the eye could see. The few houses and the number eight wire fences that made straight lines all the way out to the horizon were the only signs of life for kilometers around. I have always heard people referring to New Zealand as Godzone, and now for the first time I really understand why.  The landscape was both soft and rugged at the same time the rolling hills that turned into sharp cliff faces with rocks of all shapes and sizes poking out of the lush green grass that over time has grown around them.  Even the gorse bushes with their bright yellow flowers that blanketed the hills sides brought beauty to the table.
Hanmer Springs is famous for it thermal springs; well spring to be exact. I have to say we were a bit disappointed...Seeing so much beauty really takes its toll, we were completely exhausted by the time we got there and the arduous job of finding a campsite still lay before us. The one that our BFF had recommended was booked out and the others that we looked at were not what we were looking for, we had one last site to look at and it was pretty much do or die; we were too tired to look anywhere else and it was getting late...
We drove up to a little privately owned place, the TLC that the owners bestowed on it was immediately obvious, and the price was right. we parked our camper next to a tent that was smaller than a Porter Loo... but big enough for two sporty French people. It was freezing cold and we bunkered down in the Batmobile wearing loads of layers and all the blankets we had piled on top of us...... dreaming of warmer weather and the seafood paradise of Kiakoura....

We woke up early the next morning and the weather was nothing less than gorgeous; full of energy we hit State Highway One in search of sunshine and crayfish.
The drive was spectacular and the weather was on our side.... until we got our first glimpse of the ocean... all of a sudden clouds started to roll in... not fluffy white ones that remind you of cotton wool but the big black scary ones that you can almost hear screaming  "shows over folks".
After checking out a couple of camp grounds, there had been no change in the weather. The charcoal sky seemed to mirror the volcanic sand that was taking a merciless beating from the waves that were pounding relentlessly against the shoreline.
 We drove at snails pace down the "main-drag" trying not to lose hope when suddenly a blackboard that quite possibly fell from the heavens themselves caught my eye... double rooms $49... hmmm interesting... the hotel looked a little run down, quite possibly a remnant from a time when drovers herded sheep and cattle across this wild paradise. We snapped up the key to the room and plopped down on a bed that reminded me of a bouncy castle.  After hot shower and some intense chilling-out later we were starving. We bundled up against the elements and set out in search of something to quieten our rumbling bellies... and boy did we find it! A jumbo sized Porterhouse steak with hand-cut chips, (chups) a mushroom sauce and a side salad,for 15 bucks.... that and a pint of Speight's the world was right again. The heavens opened up but who cares? We had full bellies and cold beer. We got chatting to 2 Aussies at the same table and ending up becoming a team for the pub quiz.... If I said we were crap, it would be an understatement..... Dodo and George (the XY chromosome in our team) had to do a drink off to stop us being the wooden spoon holders of the evening...turns our the 4 of us were as thick as two short planks but D&G are fantastic drinkers....well done guys!!! That rounded off our third day Down Under...I wonder what tomorrow will bring.