It's a long, wet summer....

Simpsons Divided
After a pleasant afternoon frequenting cafes and visiting a great historic site (ie the park where Ben proposed to Juliette - note, we chose not to reenact the other great historic event that took place after the proposal. How is the little lady?), Mum and Dad Simpson (not to be confused with Mum and Dad Stanford who will meet us out here in February), treated us to a scrumptious meal at their hotel. Melt in your mouth meat washed down with fine wine. Mmmm. Meat. Not so much of that recently.

However, all good things come to an end, and as we left in their 4 star hotel room, ready to continue the tour, we hit the road again.

We'll be Ma and Pa Simpson again in Christchurch soon - monitor the blog for the next thrilling installment.


The day the solar shower wasn't an option
With our hearts empty but our bellies full, we headed out into the New Zealand summer. Which upsettingly is turning out to be remarkably like an English summer. Think grey. Think cold. Think rain. Think wind. Apparently this is all Australia's fault (a wind is heading out from Tasmania, then picking up the Antarctic wind before dumping on NZ).

We hit Arrowtown, an old mining town which is a bit twee now but the walk through the old Chinese settlement was interesting (the message was: oi, you lot can come here, work hard, get gold, but don't expect rights or dignity and go home when you are done. Depressingly familiar). We cunningly made it in and out of Arrowtown before the majority of the coach parties arrived (because our concrete jungle campsite wouldn't give us our $10 deposit back if we didn't leave by 10am SHARP).

After the bustle of Queenstown, we fancied a change and headed to the very unknown Maniatoto region. Bliss. No people. Few conurbations. Many sheep. Arresting scenery. Our campsite was a real contrast to the last one - free site, 2 other groups there, in a large field with one composting loo and a tap. Heaven! Interesting population of red ants in the toilet though but fortunately they were being kept in check by a large spider.

We set off on a walk the next morning, cheerfully leaving the solar shower out to heat out. Well. The views were great. We saw no-one else for the whole 2 hour walk. We climbed to the highest hill. Fantastic. Shame we walked the last 20 minutes in a hail storm. The solar shower covered in a layer of ice wasn't that attractive.

Ranfurly
In the 1990s the tiny town of Ranfurly was hit hard by the economic depression. They had several workshops to see what could be done. One woman realised that all the original 1930s Art Deco buildings were quite unique and could be a real draw. So they began regenerating the buildings. It's great. Art Deco hotel, library, hospital, garage... loads of the little buildings in that distinctive clean line and use of colour style. It's drawn a steady flow of tourists to the town since.

While Kara was busy following the Art Deco walk through town, Martin discovered a butcher selling cheap eggs, luxurious meat filled pies (£2.50 for 2!!!) and good bacon. You may draw your own conclusions as to who the most valuable member of Team Stanford is.

Stuff we have discovered:
• It's due to rain for the rest of summer. (please, nobody tell Martin's parents....)
• life is better with a belly full of steak and ale pie
• we are next to the sea. We kind of missed this on our map. It was a bit of a shock to drive over a hill and be confronted by a beach.
• Hail + wind + sunburnt nose = ouch
• We drove past Shag Point. It amused us 4 years ago. It amused us today. We still haven't grown up. Not as amusing as Colonial Knob Hill though.
• We like having a notebook pc. Thank you Marguerite and David! We are sat in our van, while drinking cups of tea and writing this...
• ...this makes a nice change from sitting among teenagers playing violent computer games.
• However, wifi in this country is a rip off. We think we may be reduced to driving round towns trying to find a private network that hasn't been secured properly. Yes, Martin is a geek. He makes no apologies.
• The Kiwis grumble just as much about the weather as the British do
• Kara still fancies David Tennant. Caught an episode of Dr Who last night. Magic.
• We are really really glad we got a camper van and not a tent. It's been freezing at night. Last night we had 2 duvets and a sleeping bag over us. Still a bit cold.
• We LOVE our camper van and would happily export it back to the UK if this were an option.