Bimbling in the van

Mavora Lakes and Piano Flat
The nice thing about not having a big budget is that you are always looking for a cheap option. Luckily, in NZ, this means staying at DOC sites.This policy has taken us to some very beautiful and out of the way locations. Mavora Lakes and Piano Flat were two of these.

To sum up:
- by out of the way we mean, approx 30km drive down a gravel road, after driving off the main road for 20km. It takes weeks to get that feeling out of your backside
- Mavora Lakes - trout fishing mecca. Met a mad Frenchman who got up at 2am to catch trout - BIG TROUT. Try 60lbs. Caught and then let go.
- Martin did a "man and the bush" walk. 22km in 35 degree heat. Kara stayed in the van, hiding from the sun, sandflies, and, more importantly, POLLEN.
- the nice thing about walking in the sun next to a lake, is if you get too hot, you can jump in the lake.
- Piano Flat was by a river. More swimming in there.
- Martin went and did a 4 hour walk as a run, complete with 2 steel swingbridges (as awful as they sound. Swingy, unstable, and scary).
- This run was rated as 90% jungle on account of how he wasn't actually bleeding when he came back.
- He did look half dead though, as it was 90 minutes of running through tough terrain and unformed paths. "It would have been a lot less time apart from the bits where I got lost, had to wade through mud, forge through jungle, and go uphill."
- Meanwhile, in true Little House on the Prairie style, Kara stayed at the van, doing hand washing, cleaning, and having a good meal ready for the hero's return...how did it come to this?!?!?

Next steps
We're heading to Dunedin now, as we've been invited round by Karin and Richard (who we met on Stewart Island) for curry. This has given us the great excuse to go to Liquorland. Ahhh. Rooms that are walk in freezers full of beer. Being practical souls, we have put the cold beer in the cool box to keep our milk and cheese cold. We're Karin and Richard will understand when we give them our gifts with bits of cheese attached.

Of course, the other reason to head to Dunedin is for the Stanford family reunion.... we're meeting Martin's parents there on Tuesday.

We are currently in the town of Gore (great name). Gore's claim to fame is apparently a very large statue of a trout. Guess what our fun afternoon activity is...

Depressing news...
Last week in the SalmonAvan. We're in mourning and also trying to eat up our food before we don our rucksacks and become backpackers again.

Martin is looking forward to a life where he doesn't have to make the bed before he can access his clean pants.

Kara is looking forwards to not driving around with Martin's sweaty pants from his run drying out in the back window of the van.