Rain, Rain Go Away 'Cos My Camera Can't Come Out To Play!

---

Both Glynn and I have always been good, honest, law-abiding citizens all our lives yet today we found ourselves doing something completely out of character - but worry not for although what we did this morning was not exactly the right thing, we were a far cry from doing anything illegal. Let me explain...

It all started when we woke up this morning and Glynn went to the toilet. Just as he left the van, I noticed a pickup truck pull up and someone got out. When Glynn returned he told me that the woman from the truck was carrying a clipboard and had just gone over to the window of one of the other campervans. It was only 8.30am and hardly anyone was up yet so it seemed odd and all too reminiscent of our experience in Albert Town. We could only assume the woman was collecting fees and we had both agreed the night before that we would be happy to pay $6 for the site but not $6 each. Rather than stick around to argue the toss however, we simply lobbed everything together in the back of the van and did a runner! The tyres screeched as we made our Bonnie and Clyde style getaway and we were gone before the dust settled. Yeeha!

As we were in desperate need of a shower (5 days since the last one - yikes), we decided to book ourselves in to a proper campsite for the night (we don't mind paying when there's more than a toilet to make use of). The first place we tried was in South Beach, just south of Punakaiki, at a place which offered free email. We arrived at just after 11am but when I went to enquire about a pitch for the night, I was abruptly told that the campsite was shut until 1pm and the lady turned around and walked off! I was appalled at her atitude so we drove straight up to Punakaiki and stayed at the campsite there instead. They may not have had free email but even though they were stupidly busy, they made time to book us in and give us a much warmer welcome.

We were lucky to have checked in when we did as the skies had been looking pretty forbidding and it wasn't long after we got parked up and settled in that the rain started falling by the bucketload. There was a nice little communal area and kitchen for the guests to use and we made ourselves at home while the storm passed over us. We were joined by some really friendly and chatty people including a South African/Canadian couple who have emigrated to Christchurch. Grant was a ship's captain which was fascinating to me and I spent ages firing random questions at him about life at sea. There was also a cool German couple with a toddler who had moved to Alice Springs in Australia in order to study the Aboriginal people. I also met a Dutch lady who teaches languages at a college in Holland so we had loads to talk about too. A really interesting bunch of people to while away the hours with :-)

The rain continued all evening and even escalated to a thunderstorm for a while although I was disappointed by the lack of any cool lightning. The poor campsite was thoroughly waterlogged so when we finally dragged ourselves back over to the campervan for the night, we pretty much stayed put in order to stay dry. As a result, I'm afraid there's no photos to accomany the blog this time!

---