01/05/09

I was woken up early due to the sun shining through the curtains. We got up at about 9 and did the usual tidy up, this time it involved the girls putting some of our unused food on to the free food shelf. The guys walked in to town and the girls and I sorted out the waste and filled up with water again. Laura gave the waste a good hosing with our water hose, she must have the magic touch because it just flooded out and after about 40 minutes of listening to it trickle out and gagging every time we peeked outside the gauge said it was empty. We were well happy.

We drove towards Akaroa at about 1100 thinking it was an hour drive, but the roads got really windy and it we didn't arrive until 1230. It was still sunny when we arrived but there were a lot of clouds in sight. As we got out of the camper the girls caught 3 grown men taking photos of each other in a huge Whaling Tri-pot and found it very funny. We had a wander around town and soon decided that it didn't feel very french, as advertised. We were hungry so walked around a few cafe's, everything seemed rather expensive so we checked out quite a few. As we neared the end of the street we popped in to one cafe that looked quite nice, it turned out to be a clothes shop, we were a bit perplexed and had a quick look around before shuffling out. We settled on the first cafe we had visited and were served by a French woman who didn't seem to understand much of what we were asking. Before we left we had to have a go at hopping in the Whaling Tripot. As we were leaving we had drove past a much nicer part of town with plenty of nice looking eateries, nevermind.

We arrived at Onawe Peninsular soon after and parked up in what has to be the most dodgy place so far, the camper looked like it was going to tip over at any second. We went to do the hour long loop walk as listed in the guide book. The start of it turned in to a very sharp ridge that was barely traversable. The walk took us over 'lumps' as Helen put it, the first one was fairly small, but Helen seemed to be getting quite tired/sick going up the second. I thought this was the final one, but as we neared the top another huge hill presented itself, with a steep track running up the side. Helen slipped and ended up with her hands in the mud on the way up but trundled on regardless. We arrived at the top and had a rest on some rocks. Laura led the way back down the 'path'. I'm pretty sure that wasn't the correct path because the girls ended up spending most of the time holding on to whatever branches, trees and even grass as they could find as their feet seemed to slip every time they placed them down. I honestly have no idea how they seem to slip over all the time. The track was seriously overgrown and just seemed to get worse and worse, for the girls that is, I had no problems and was finding it hillarious watching them slipping and sliding all the way down as I just walked normally behind them. At one point they both stopped at one part and seemed completely baffled as to how to get past. I took the lead and walked out normally, Helen asked how I did it and put her foot where I put mine and it slipped from underneath her. Laura decided to go for a different route and scrambled up in the falled leaves and held a thin branch, it wasn't long before she was on her arse and sliding down the hill towards the cliff edge sounding a little worried. She eventually made it through safely and Helen followed the same path. They were both quite worred about having a rather steep edge directly to their right, but a little while later the path opened up and we walked back towards the camper. Our feet were caked in mud when we got back.

I drove us back praying the petrol we had remaining was enough to get us back to Christchurch. I had worked out that we had just the right amount to get to Akaroa and back, but it was looking a little bit sketchy on the way back as the Refuel Now light popped on with about 40km left. I was getting quite concerned but luckily we made it all the way to the outskirts of Christchurch and found a BP garage. We popped in to Countdown to pick up some stuff for dinner and then drove to the nightly parking spot. There was a group of dressed up old women standing directly behind the van when I was trying to park and didn't seem to realise I was trying to reverse in. Eventually they got the idea and one of them even helped back me in, and found the whole thing rather amusing, as I was so close to her mates car. We had to pay for 3 hours of parking becuase it was Friday and then went to meet the guys at the library where we said we would meet them later. They popped back to the van to pack some stuff back in to their bags while we stayed and managed to get 1 hours worth of internet for $1 then went back to the van and had our last van cooked meal. Mash, veg and cocktail sausages, it was really good. Laura 'packed' her bag after dinner and then Helen had a go. It was my turn shortly after that. I started by opening the cupboard under the stairs and after pulling everything out found just about all of my missing socks then stuffed them into my shoes. The thought of packing was too much when my shoes wouldn't fit into the bottom of my bag as I'd wanted so Laura kindly offered to help, and pretty much ended up packing my bag for me.

Helen and I decided that we needed to go for a dump so we walked together towards base to use their toilets. As we approached the city centre we noticed 2 fire-engines and a bunch of firemen hanging around. After 5 minutes of watching and not knowing what was going on we saw them put the cherry picker up and lower a guy on to the roof of a building. Helen spotted an animal rescue van nearby so we assumed that there was some kind of animal up there. We waited to see what it was and had a few jokes at what could possibly be up there, but they took too long so we went to the toilet and hoped they'd still be there when we got back. Before we visited the toilets we popped in to the kitchen and sat on its own underneath the sink was exactly what we were looking for, a plain white plate matching the one we had lost at Dunedin, I picked it up and shoved it under my hoody and we slyly walked to the toilets. It looked obvious the way I was holding the plate so I handed it to Helen who shoved it down her trousers and under her top when we got to the unisex bogs. This was possibly the strangest experience of my life, we were both sat on toilets in adjacent cubicles chatting, and every now and then I could hear the clanking of crockery as she was fumbling about. We made it outside, past the security with no problems and then Helen, holding a plate in clear view, went up to the fireman and asked what was going on. Turns out there was a cat on the roof, but they didn't rescue it because it was happy living up there eating pigeons. When we returned Laura and I attempted to watch American Gangster, but didn't get too far.