Campervan saga

Make sure you speak the language - Lesson #2.
We picked up our campervan this morning (January 28) and found a hand-written note on the dash saying “No gas”. Being Canadian, we assumed that this meant there was no fuel in the van. When we asked about this, the girl said that it had all been checked and it was full. And indeed, when we drove away, the gas gauge registered “Full”. However, about 90 km out of Christchurch, my British brain dropped into gear and I realized that “gas” here means “cooking gas” not “petrol”. So we stopped, opened up the storage compartment where the liquid gas is kept and lo and behold, there was nothing there! Nothing - empty - zilch - nada. No tank at all! Not only no gas - but no tank. After our somewhat heated e-mails to the company after our first campervan experience (no linen and then REALLY bad information given to us about toll roads) you can imagine that we were certainly not happy campers! However, it’s not such a huge deal - we will have to buy a tank tomorrow and we will be OK but it’s a pain in the rear end as we will now have to drive around to find somewhere to buy it and then go through all the paperwork to be reimbursed. Oh well - all part of life’s rich tapestry …..
We have driven to a delightful, peaceful little place in the mountains, Mount Somers. We have opted to do nothing while we’re here - the weather is lovely, there are 2 alpacas munching away in the pasture behind our van, the birds are singing and John just went to buy some cider. So all is good. We are relaxing in the shade (the sun is BURNING hot here - you have to be really careful and slather on sun screen or you really regret it), reading and beating each other at cards. I guess the Australian Open will just have to go ahead without us now that we are on the road, but I can get the results on the internet. Sad to see that my boy Rafa had to pull out the other night to let Andy Murray through ……. On our way here, we had to stop every few miles for John to take pictures of the hedges. They really are quite something, often topping 25’ or more. And they are so beautifully kept! Lots of different shapes and SO BIG!! (see picture)
January 31 - not such smooth sailing as I had predicted with the elusive gas tank! I’ll cut a very long and frustrating story short, but after Mount Somers, we drove to a lovely little town called Geraldine where we asked a very helpful man in the hardware store to help us run down a gas tank. He had one couriered in from the nearest big town only to find that the fittings didn’t fit! So we called the camper company again and were told that we could pick up a new tank in a different town the next day which was not on our planned route at all. However, we went there and after several more bumps in the road, we eventually have a functioning liquid gas tank (I have since discovered that the ignition system is faulty! My first clue was when I was nearly blown out of the van when I tried to light one of the burners). I’m in the middle of composing an e-mail to the customer service manager of the company (whom I am on first name terms already following our history in Australia) so we’ll see what the outcome is. While we were in Geraldine, we decided to do some retail therapy and went to an outlet store in an old tin shed, appropriately called The Tin Shed, where we both bought a New Zealand wool sweater (Zoe - they are being shipped directly home, so don’t get excited when the parcel arrives!) ANYWAY, we are now underway, more or less completely fitted out and I am doing a lot of humming (my yoga buddies will understand!)
We are now at Lake Tekapo which is a gorgeous turquoise lake and we have a camp site right on the lake shore. We walked into the village this morning (our only form of exercise at the moment - we are doing rather a lot of sitting in the van so I’m trying to get us out and “tramping” as much as possible). There is a tiny church on the lake (the Church of the Good Shepherd) - as you sit in the pews, there is a huge window behind the altar so you see directly out over the lake. Obviously, there are a lot of sheep here (it looks incredibly like the Lake District in England) and the church was erected to pay tribute to the sheep men of the area. A bit further down the road is a beautiful statue of a collie dog, to pay tribute to the workers! The weather here is quite exciting - “4 seasons in one day” according to the locals. The clouds on the mountains are quite spectacular, especially when you watch them rolling down into the hollows - it looks like molten lava pouring down a volcano. In the evening, we went stargazing with 7 other intrepid tourists and an astronomer. The skies around Lake Tekapo have been designated as a World Heritage Site and no planes are allowed to fly over it at night. Unfortunately the moon was nearly full (it looked incredible but really messed up our ability to see much with the naked eye). The astronomer was great - really enthusiastic and knowledgeable and we were able to look through 2 different telescopes at various stars, nebulae etc. It was really cold (even for us!) - one of our purchases in Melbourne had been two extremely colorful toques (wooly hats) so we were able to christen them (looks even worse than the sun hat, Zoe!)