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For those living in caves who might not have heard yet, Britain has a new Primeminster - David Cameron. Now I don’t want to get into politics - anyone who knows John can probably imagine the rantings and ravings that could be heard emanating from our van over the past few days! For my part, I’m just so grateful that the uncertainty has been cleared and the exchange rate has finally become a bit more acceptable for us poor travellers overseas! However, I would wish “Call Me Dave”, his new best friend, Nick, and all their Cabinet the very best of British with any attempt to sort out the economy!
Aha! We thought this morning when we peeked out of our windows at the glorious view of Lake Pukaki and the cloud topped mountains, ‘so that’s what clouds look like’. It had been nearly 3 weeks since we last saw a cloud, and we thought our luck had run out - but would you believe it, they cleared away to leave us yet another bright sunny day. However, before they did clear, we did get the opportunity to look down on a cloud covered valley while we were on our
way to Lake Tekapo.
We didn’t spend too long at Lake Tekapo - really just spent some time admiring the view and taking photos of the most adorable little church - the Church of the Good Shepherd. It had a beautiful glass window looking up the Lake towards the Two Thumbs Mountain Range, that were covered in snow and clouds. Hopefully John managed to get a good photograph this time.
We then decided to drive down to Timaru from Fairlie. We weren’t really expecting too much, and were just taking advantage of the wonderful weather to admire yet another wonderful valley. However, as we passed through a place called Cave (it had one shop) we realised there was some Maori Rock Art about. Keen to see if there were any improvements on our previous experience, I was soon knocking on the door of Rock Farm to ask for directions (we’d been told to go there by the Cave shopholder). My heart sank when I looked up the steep hill edged with electric fences, but John said I could take it slowly ... so I did! It was worth it - the paintings were so much better than before
(well, at least they were actually still there!). Unfortunately we don’t know how old they are - or even how they know they were done by the Maori, rather than the indigenous race who were there before the Maori arrived and ate them.
Thinking we were onto a winner, the next attraction on the map was ‘Cleland’s Zig Zag’ - when we got the Cleland there were no signs, no information and no shop in which to ask - we drove slowly up the hairpin bends to the top of the ‘cliff’ and thought that maybe it was the ‘zig zag’ road - but then thought we’d been up so many similar while we’d been here, it was hardly an unusual feature. We also saw some strange markings in a field and wondered whether it was marks from an earthquake that had left zig zags across the land. I looked it up on the internet later and found that it’s a cave ... but goodness only knows where!
Eventually we got to Timaru and visited the library to update the blog and read our emails - it’s strange to know we’ll be home soon, but John’s getting quite
excited and has already put his name down for cricket! We’re fairly torn between wanting to go home and see everyone and wanting to keep the travelling going!
I was amused by a message from Jason entitled Watties, Watties - Watties are the NZ producer of all sorts of foodstuffs - the other day we bought a can of Watties Baked BeaNZ ... how’s that for playing on national pride!!
We suddenly realised that time was getting away from us and that we had to set off to the site that we’d chosen for the night. Unfortunately, this meant that we had to miss visiting Geraldine and the ‘must do’ sight of the world’s largest sweater (it’s in the Guiness Book of Records!). In the same place they have a 40 foot long mosaic copy of the Bayeux Tapestry. I really did feel that we ought to visit these sights, as you have to have a certain sympathy if this is the only tourist attraction the Town Council could come up with, but John gently said we couldn’t do everything and maybe next time... It was quite a surprise at 5:18pm when it started spitting with rain! Despite
driving over the longest bridge in NZ 4 times (John says it was nearly 2km long) we couldn’t find the site. I ended up asking someone playing netball (it was only light rain) and luckily she was the owner of the local pub - so we were soon parked up in the pub car park and sitting by the wood-burning stove enjoying a pint of the best!
Ooh - before I go, just enough time to say we can tick off #6 Aoraki Mt Cook and #25 Lake Tekapo - and the only creeks of interest were Paddy’s Market, Swamp and Dead Horse (again!)
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