South Island

Okay, so sorry about the last post... It was kind of a get something up before the window closes, kamikaze internet strike. Hopefully that explains the spelling mistakes.

As it turned out, I got to the zoo on the north island the next day and didn't make it out quadding. A little disappointing, but I have a quad at home, and the Rockies are only 3 hours away.

Thanks to hanging with Tina, my Aussie is practically gone. Back to talking like a Canuck, for the most part, she is picking up a bit of the Kiwi, and I still have a shade of the Aussie. Meh, a week back home and there will be no difference.

So we camped the first night of our trip in the Caitlins, slept in a parking lot (we have a campervan) literally steps from the beach. We got up and watched the sunrise over the cliffs, and spent the morning collecting sea shells by the sea shore. But we didn't sell any (hahahahaha).

We drove out to the petrified forest in the Caitlins and the New Zealand version of Niagra Falls... don't ask. Then up to the Fiords at Te Anau. In Te Anau we took a cruise trip out to the Tasmanian Sea (spotted some sea lions on a rock) some great waterfalls coming down off the cliffs, and had a captain that was a blast... completely off his rocker. This is where we met the first set of stranded fellow travellers.

5 young men from the US had not noticed all the signs that there was no gas up in the fiords. Last gas station was an hour away back in Te Anau. So they were pretty much stuffed. They asked the captain to ask the other cruisers if anyone had spare fuel, and Tina and I felt that it was the right thing to do. So we tried to siphon some gas out of our van for them, but that didn't go so well. (we gave on of the boys milk as he was looking pretty green). Turns out there is a screen in the tank so it can't be siphoned. Who knew. We decided to follow them back to town, as we had heard there was a hunting camp where they might be able to get some. As it turned out their luck was in and they managed to get enough to get back. They bought us lunch... sweet kids.

Today I went on the Canyon swing www.canyonswing.co.nz and that was fun. I wore my camera helmet and got some good footage of zipping down the cliffs. I think, I haven't downloaded the footage yet and had a go of editing it. I'll get on that at some point. Electric is harder to come by than internet, so I've been saving battery power every chance I get.

The second strandee we happened across was earlier tonight. We were looking for a camp site where we could (if possible) free park. On the winding "mountain" roads of Queenstown, we spotted a young french guy with a blow out, and by the looks of it, he was having a rough time of changing the flat. So we whipped about and went back to see if there was anything we could do. His jack was useless beyond reason, and cell service was totally non existent. So we drove him back into town, and dropped him at a hostel. He has my cell # and we told him we would be in town until around noon tomorrow. If he needed help, he could text us and we would do what we could.

So far so good I guess. We'll see what tomorrow holds.

Lisa Freitag

Silent River Kung Fu, Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand.