Well, *hit

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I'm writing from a bar/cafe/internet outpost in Westport on the West Coast. I THOUGHT this blog would be about the amazing time we had in Abel Tasman or the revisiting of Shambhala, but instead, I'm going to b*tch about our car troubles. Bear with me.

Cait and I had pulled off to the side of the road to look at the map and see where we were going to stop for the night. We left Shambhala and the Golden Bay. After deciding to keep on going on to the Pancake Rocks down the West Coast, I pulled back onto the road to travel another hour or so. That's when we heard an awful clang and a scraping noise.

"Shit," we both said at the same time. I stopped the car and we took a look under the carriage. There was our exhaust pipe split into two pieces, while one end was dragging along the asphalt. That would explain the scraping noise.

After freaking out for a little bit and randomly calling any number we knew in Westport, we finally took a guyline from Caitlin's tent and tied it under the dragging pipe and looped it through to our seats in the car. We drove this way into town and luckily, found a young gas attendent who was eager to get his hands on any tools in the garage next door.

He taped up our exhaust pipe with a small repair kit and we thought we were on our way! I started the engine again and we heard a familiar clang...

The guy looks at the both of us in the car from the SUV he's pumping with gas and motions that the pipe is *ucking dragging it's @$$ on the ground (sorry, mom). So that leads me here, to this pub, seeking solace in an irritated post and a long pint of beer. Luckily the guy will fix it again, but apparently pissed off his manager with his mechanic routine and has to wait until his break in about an hour. It's Saturday here, probably the worst day to break down. We have to wait until Monday to get it fixed... Caitlin suggested we not get it welded back together because it will cost us another 100 bucks... I gave her a look that said, I'll pay for the whole damn thing if I have to, we're not driving with our exhaust pipe masking taped together around the Southern Alps.

It looks like Chippy had just one too many bumpy rides down the dirt road to Shambhala... or maybe it was all the back and forth on the dirt road to Farewell Spit when I thought Caitlin was lost on the trail when she showed up 3 hours later than we had agreed. Or maybe we just should have checked the map from the road instead of going off the road which was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Sigh. Anyway, I feel better now. Time for that beer.

Next entry... all about Abel Tasman, losing Caitlin on Farewell Spit and Shambhala part 2.

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