We woke to the sound of rain on the roof of the Hi-Ace. It would be a feature of the day. It had started to belt it down in the night and had certainly woken myself up a few times, but not so much James. Maybe the extra glass of Sauvignon Blanc had kicked in and rendered him un-wakable. I’m not even sure if that’s a word. But I digest; we needed to get all gear in order and get south. We had planned to do the hour-long trek down by the bridge and maybe get a closer look at the gorge, but with the constant teeming down of rain we decided against it. We have two golf brollies, but it just seemed too miserable to even begin to think about it. As I sat there drinking my second cup of tea (two cups, one tea bag dipped between the two) I revelled in the fact that I could have a nice brew pretty much whenever I felt like it. Something that I couldn’t always get (certainly not for breakfast at least) back in the US, and maybe not in Oz, our next destination. It’s the little things that keep you happy.
Palmerston North. That was where we were heading that day. We had a fair few miles to cover that day but we took it in shifts as per the usual and we were there before lunch. The drizzle was still omnipresent and meant that we would need the brollies for our brief stroll into town. We were on the lookout for an internal hard drive if possible, so that we wouldn’t need to mess around in Wellington in a few days time. Nowhere sells them these days apparently. No Dixons or Currys type of shop that’s for sure. We then realised we would need a small independent computer shop, and that job would definitely have to wait til Wellington, mainly because it was Sunday and most shops in New Zealand close on Sunday. Or Monday. Or Tuesday. Or whenever they flipping well feel like it, it seems. Or they close midday, or a few minutes before we need one. Much like the information centre that had shut 20 minutes before we needed it. All we needed was directions to the campsite, so I asked the toilet attendant (long story) and she pointed us in the vague direction.
We had only been in Palmerston North (which is in the SOUTH of the island) for a couple of hours and already we were sick of the place. The rain had soaked my shoes and James remarked that the place had a very Eastern European communist town feel to it; a comment with which I whole-heartedly agreed with. We found the campsite no problem, and much like the US Greyhound busses/bus stations having a different system in every city the campsites seemed to operate in a variety of ways. We made base on lot B4 and did our usual evening routines. Mine had the addition of creating my Fantasy Football team for the coming English Premier League season, and James’s had cooking his socks in the kitchen oven at 200oC. You see, it was $4 for a wash and $4 for a dry, so after handwashing all his clothes he put them through the initial $4 dry, then an additional $4 dry and they still weren’t dry. After burning a couple of socks in the oven it was really time for plan D, which was setting everything out in the campervan with the little portable heater working overtime. It was like sitting in a (choose relevant country) laundry-room at times, but it did the job in the end.
 |
| His and His wine boxes |
 |
| Well-done or medium-rare? |
No comments:
Post a Comment