Carry On Car Troubles (North Island : Wairarapa, Napier & Gisborne)

Stu : We started our road trip proper last week. For the next 4 months we’ll be travelling around the North Island, South Island and then finally on to Australia. Things haven’t exactly gone according to plan but thems the breaks I suppose. On the way up the East Coast from Wellington to Napier the car broke down and we had to spend a day in a farming town in rural New Zealand while we got the car fixed. Not many garages to chose from but funnily enough plenty of banjo-repair shops

So back on the road it was and we finally made it up to Napier on Tuesday. We got booked into a cracking wee campsite on the beach 9kms North of Napier. After a relaxing night we got up early to set off on a days hike around one of the local National Parks. Amanda made the mistake of leaving me to back the car out of the campsite whilst she got showered. Needless to say it all ended in tears. As I reversed a tree jumped out of nowhere and I reversed straight into it. I was only doing about 5kms per hour but somehow managed to do over $2000 worth of damage to our car ! This unfortunately meant we had to hang around Napier for 3 days while it got fixed. Hmmm….not the best. We made the most of it though as we were fortunate enough to get a courtesy car from the Panel Beaters and were able to flee from Napier for every-ones safety. We camped a couple of nights in some superb, picturesque campsites before heading back to Napier to get our newly pieced together car back. As a wee bonus the panel beaters had given the car a full valet but I suppose it’s the least we could expect from $2000 worth of business.

Moral of the story…..don’t leave Stu alone with a motorised vehicle unless fully fed and watered !

Amy: It’s been a great week apart from the car problems. The weather has been awesome and only the odd nights where the rain hit us. The scenery on the way was amazing. Loads of new views for us as we’ve never driven up the East coast of the North Island. Did a few touristy stops like the Art Museum in Masterton (not much else to see there), NZ’s equivelant to Stonehenge, The longest place name in the world and Napiers version of the the mermaid who sits on the rock in Copenhagen. All in all it’s been totally terrific.

We’ve spent the last few days chilling in Opotiki with Manda, Willie and the kids. It’s been bliss getting a lie in, in a proper bed rather than the inflatable mattress I made Stu buy us for sleeping in a tent for the next 3 weeks!!

We’re heading off tomorrow to spend a few days back in Gisbourne and hopefully getting dunked in a cage in the sea with 3 metre Mako sharks…if not I’m sure there’s going to be something else we can experience over the next few weeks.

Lets hope the car problems are in the past and the rest of our road trip 2007/08 is a success.