May 9, 2007, Wellington New Zealand

Date:  Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Location:  Lower Hutt, New Zealand

I am still trying to play catch up on getting our blog site up to date.  On Tuesday we drove from Greymouth, a nice town on the west coast, on up towards Westport.  This drive never ceases to amaze us with the fantastic seaside views.  Highway 6 along here reminds us of the Pacific Coast Highway in California somewhat but we have to say that the views in California don’t compare with the views here.  You drive along the coast varying in altitudes from sea level on up to halfway up the coastal mountainsides.  The road has many curves, switchbacks, climbing, and descending with much use of the six speed manual transmission on the motor home.  Vehicles here are made for left handed people (me) as the floor shift is on your left side as the driver is on the right side.  Joan likes this going north on the west coast as it gives her a good view down the unguarded cliffs on her side of the road.

 

The stop at the Pancake Rocks was enjoyed by everyone.  A few of us stopped at the seal colony closer to Westport.  There were a lot of seals there especially a lot of mothers with their young pups playing on the rocks enjoying the sun.  From Westport we headed back over the Southern Alps and down into the Wairau Valley picking up Highway 63 which is the straightest highway that we will probably be on in New Zealand.  95 Kilometers of straight with a few turns here and there along the way.

 

Joan and I arrived in Picton after dark as usual having stopped to “smell the flowers” numerous times along the way.  Picton is the point where we load the motor homes onto the ferry for the trip to Wellington.

 

The next addition to our strange happenings trip – “The Lost Girl Story”.  John and Carell had just left Queenstown when they saw a young girl, about 2-3 years old walking along the side of the road sobbing and crying.  They stopped and tried to get her to talk with them but the child was afraid and frightened and could or would not talk clearly enough for John and Carell to determine who she was or where she came from.  They were afraid that maybe there had been an accident or car over the side of the road and not visible.  After a short while another car stopped, a local family, and they had a cell phone and called 111 (their local 911).  The police arrived and started to investigate but also had no luck communicating with the girl at first.  Eventually the police said that John and Carell could leave.  John and Carell asked the local couple to email them if they found out anything.  Today they found out that the girl was a boy and had been at a birthday party at a friend’s house and his parents were camping in an RV in the back of the house someplace.  The boy was sleeping in the house apparently and woke up and tried to find his parents but became disoriented and began wandering.  Finding out what happened was excellent closure as everyone was concerned about the child.

 

Broken ankle report – Esther is doing well after her surgery in Invercargill on Monday.  Her and Bob are still there.  She now has to wait about 10 days before they will put on the cast.  We’re now working on having them turn in their motorhome in Christchurch where we picked up the motorhomes and then flying to Auckland and renting another motorhome there and meet up with us at some point around there.  Donna, our NZ Habitat coordinator, has been providing terrific support and going out of her way to get this all pulled together.  Bob and Esther are constantly in our thoughts and prayers. 

 

The ferry crossing today was uneventful other than it was about an hour late.  Why would we think this was unusual since all of our connections with commercial travel has been delayed somehow.  Very unusual for NZ but then this is an “unusual happenings” trip.  Last night at our meeting I told everyone that we would be surprised if no one was lost on the way to the Lower Hutt campground as to the best of our knowledge no group had ever made it to the campground without someone getting lost including ourselves.  Well today another “unusual happening” happened.  Everyone made it to the campground from the ferry within about 3 or 4 minutes of each other.  This team definitely gets the team award for getting to Lower Hutt without getting lost award.