From the far

Yesterday/today we:
• Stumbled across a gypsy curio van which, with our own gypsy tendencies, we of course had to see. Blair who originally comes from Auckland moved down to the Catlins years back to combine his love of physics and art to create weird and wonderful gadgets that Data Wang from The Goonies would be proud of. A spinning wheel which made your eyes see funny, a gurgling oyster machine, a hand-held gun that made a walnut fly like a helicopter, a nose-itcherer and much, much more. We had lots of fun being kids here.
• Inputted our expenses into the computer. And ‘puter said naaaah.
• Had the most delicious chish and fips at the end of Bluff, and marvelled (and sang) at how we’d ‘never been this far away from home’ (London – 18,958 km).
  

  I've Never Been This Far Away From Home

• Hunted and hunted on Gemstone Beach for some beauties. Found some wonderful pebbles and stones. Later had a Pebble-Off Championship whereby we each put forward our ten best pebbles, one against one, to see who had pocketed the best. And I won!! Will was gutted and tried to accuse me of only putting forward spotty ones or stripy ones. But I still won.
  

  All The Pweeety Pebbles

• Ended up in the weird and wonderful town (hamlet? cult?) of Manapouri. Driven away from first campsite we stopped at by menopausal and frightening woman owner who exclaimed “You cannot sleep here!!” several times without actually explaining why. Eventually managed to decipher it was because Samson is not self-contained (i.e. no ladies powder room on board) that he was not welcome in these parts.
• Finally ended up in a wonderful campsite far, far nicer than Menopausal Land. This place is full of old Morris Minors parked up (some with Guy Fawkes’s stuffed cousins sitting in them), quaint little huts, soldiers uniforms adorning the office, old skool pinball machines from the early 80s, Monty Python cigarette cards in frames in the toilets, and lots of other beautiful eclectic eccentricities besides. Loving it.
• Went for another long tramp up a ridiculously high hill (Tris, you would have been so proud of us), but had to boat across Waiau River to get there. Hired a rowing boat, which any normal couple would have mastered instantly and got across in 5 minutes. But not Will and me. Even with our recent Berlin rowing boat experiences, we were floating ducks. We were obviously given a rowing boat with a dire malfunction, in that it insisted on only going around in circles. Several brushes with the bank and close encounters with trees later, we hit our destination. I think it took half an hour. It felt like several. We even gained a laughing audience on the bank. The walk itself was wonderful. Saw the most beautiful moss I have ever seen (apart from Louisa Moss, of course!!!*) and at the top the views over Lake Manapouri were stunning.
• Decided that South Islanders are not in fact that happy. We have had some upsetting incidents with ‘happy’ southerners, including aforementioned Menopausal Woman (Beast). But also, Will got shouted at by a barking mad young lady at the Shell garage in Dunedin for not pulling forward enough, even though there were free pumps either side for her. And, we experienced an incident of the most strange variety with a café owner when Will tried to purchase an omelette and salad. The menu stated $25 for omelette and chips and salad, $15 for omelette and toast, $11 for omelette alone and $8 for salad. Will asked how much for just an omelette and salad and was told it would still be $25!! So he happily in his Will-lie way (which is always happy, and always pleasant) mentioned that he could then just order an omelette on it’s own for $11, plus a salad for $8 and only pay $19. The young waitress laughed and agreed. The owner looked severely upset despite Will’s joking demeanour and just muttered under her breath “Whatever…” In the end he ordered a chicken wrap. Best left.

Off now to cheer up some more southerners, and to adopt a Scot for the night. We’re off to the local bar to catch the Australian Open final, and see Murray get whooped by Master Federer. xx

* And probably Kate Moss should get a mention. Although I’ve never actually seen her face-to-face, so maybe not.

Milford Sounds View