Stunning scenery & strange generosity

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Our next planned stop was a place called Lake Tekapo, from Queenstown it didn't take very long to get here and of course the drive was as pleasent as a stroll through the woods. We arrived at the village around lunch time so pulled up near some park benches next to the lake and cooked up a delicious cup-a-soup, we'd also treated ourselves to a loaf of bread to go with it which more than attracted the attention of a few birds. There were two ducks who were especially greedy and wouldnt leave us alone until we'd given them most of our bread, they were quite cute and we did contemplate luring them into the back of our van and kidnapping them for a while. We didnt.

After admiring the lake for a while we decided there really wasnt much more to do and decided to move on. We drove for quite a while and decided just to find somewhere pretty to pull over and stay for the evening. We spotted somewhere but were driving too fast to stop so drove a bit further up the road to find somewhere to turn around, the sun was shining now and the sky was a lovely blue; as we turned a corner in the road we were faced with one of the most spectacular views on our whole trip. It was Lake Pukaki and because of the perfect light and time of day it was reflecting every blade of grass that surrounded it like a polished mirror; the great Mount Cook which towered over the rest of the mountains around it, all of which stood out a brilliant white. It was incredible. We sat on a rock a while and took in what could have been heaven on earth.

We eventually tore ourselves away and headed back to the rest stop we'd spotted earlier, it was nice, by a little lake and with no one else there. We set up camp, had some dinner and played cards. We didnt know it at the time but this was our last night sleeping in the campervan.

The next morning we carried on our drive to Christchurch. On the way we spotted a little town called Twizel, we made a stop here for one reason; we liked the name. It was a really strange place, we walked into their main square which had 80s music blaring out over a megaphone although there was hardly anyone around. We found a camping store, bought some gas, used their public toilets and then left feeling a little odd ourselves.

With no more unessesary stops we made it to Christchurch in quite good time. As it is a big city we were aware that we should start looking for somewhere to stay the night early on as we would have to trall the outskirts looking for a suitable spot. We were having no luck at all and after driving through the whole city and then a bit, we found ourselves about 10km out of town using up far too much petrol. We'd almost given up when we decided to ask at a pub we'd seen if we could stay in their car park for a small fee.

We walked in to a completely empty bar and met the manager who introduced herself as Patrice, we asked her if we could park up for the night and she said it would be absolutely fine and wouldn't cost us a thing. Excellent. With the good news we bought some drinks and made ourselves comfortable next to an open fire. A few hours and many beers later Patrice was our new best friend and so were two men we had met who lived right next to the pub. They were pretty drunk too and seemed most of the time to be in their own little world laughing and mumbling to one another like Beavis and Butthead.

A few more hours and beers later the two guys left and we decided to call it a night too. When we went to settle our bill Patrice handed us a piece of paper with her address on it, she told us that we should come by her house the next day and we could use her shower (we had been complaining to her earlier in the evening how hard it was to find public showers). We thought she was being really kind and it would be rude to turn down an offer like that so we said that we would see her the next day. Then straight after this happened one of the men who lived next door to the pub came back in and said that we should come and sleep in their house that night because it was very cold outside and we'd freeze on our van. Again it was a very generous offer and we felt rude turning it down so the next thing we knew we were tucked under a blanket on the floor of a childs bedroom in a strange house with two strange men we didnt even know the names of.

The next morning we got up, thanked our anonymous hosts and left with the uncomfortable thought that we'd agreed to go to another strange persons house and use their shower. We found her house quite easily and feeling pretty awkward we knocked on her door. She couldnt do enough for us, offering us breakfast, coffee, handing us bath towels, face towels and we couldnt help feeling very relieved to be having a shower. The situation still felt a little strange however, and when she announced that she had to go to work and said that we could stay and help ourselves to anything we were a bit shocked, then she went one step further and said that we should come back that evening and stay the night in her spare room, but she would still be at work so she would leave the door open for us basically to come and go as we pleased. We found ourselves saying yes thank you and before we knew it she'd taken all our dirty laundry and stuffed it in her washing machine.

We spent our day pottering around Christchurch, we found a huge music store and spent about an hour admiring guitars. With not a lot else to do we located a cinema and went to see Burn After Reading which was hilarious. When we came out of the cinema we realised that it was time to go back to Patrices house, this gave us both a feeling of discomfort and disappointment, we quite enjoyed sleeping and cooking in our van but had committed to taking advantage of her generosity and had to stick to our decision. When we walked up to her house we realised that someone was in watching TV, Patrice had told us she'd be at work so we were a little confused and felt more than awkward just walking in like she had told us to do.

We went inside and there was a young man in a beanie hat lounged on the sofa watching MTV. We introduced ourselves and he seemed to know who we were even though we had no clue who he was. We thought perhaps we'd misheard him but were sure he'd introduced himself as 'BJ'. We sat and watched TV with him and chatted nonsense for a few hours before going to bed. Our room had been made up for us, still feeling a little unsure we undressed and got into our latest strange bed. Just before we went to sleep we whispered to one another under the covers that we thought Patrice might want to murder us. Night night.

We arose the next morning, still alive and still in one piece. Patrice was in the kitchen so we went to say good morning, on the kitchen table was some money and a map. Patrices father is English but her mother is of Mauri decent and she was very proud of this, the money was for us to spend on tickets to an evening in a Mauri village having a 'Mauri experience', the map was directions on how to get there that evening. We were shocked at her generosity and felt very guilty for accusing her of wanting to kill us. She also insisted that we stay one more night in her house. After this we made some breakfast and sat in the garden with her and chatted, she was very open and honest. She told us that when she was younger she was a bit mixed up and actually admitted to having been a terrible racist, mostly towards white people. She then admitted that she used to plan in great detail how to murder someone, the weapons she would use and how she would cover it up perfectly without anyone tracing it back to her. Obviously all our suspicions came flooding back.

After Patrice left the house to go to work we packed up a few of our things and headed to a small nearby beach and discussed her motives for sending us on an expensive trip and whether we should stay one more night in her house. The whole thing was quite funny so we decided just to go with it and that evening we went to the Mauri Village and had a really interesting evening learning about Mauri culture, getting involved in their dances and singing and learning about how they used to live. Afterwards we went to a car park and spent a couple of hours cleaning out Chats because we had to give him back the next day before flying back to Auckland.

We then headed back to Patrices house expecting another evening in front of the TV with 'BJ'. When we arrived we found a small gathering of people having a bit of a party, BJ was there and so were 5 or six other people we didnt know, one of which turned out to be Patrices boyfriend. We stayed up with them until the wee hours playing drinking games and arguing the differences between England and New Zealand. We've found New Zealanders generally dont like the monarchy and they said a few bad things about our Liz.

We survived another night in our strange bed and the next morning we thanked Patrice for all she had done by giving her a scarf we had bought in Argentina, we weren't quite sure if she liked it but the thought was there. We promised to send them postcards and when we left Patrice, her boyfriend, BJ (who turned out to be Patrices brother) and a random girl who had also stayed the night came out and stood in the road to wave us off. Bye friends.

We drove Chats to the rental company and kissed him goodbye and then caught a lift to the airport. We flew back to Auckland where we spent a brief couple of nights doing not very much and then caught our flight to Sydney.

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