We're in Hanmer Springs comfy and snug in our "house on wheels".
After a few weeks of kitting out the caravan and truck, helping to wrangle the kids and hanging with Eric and Sue, off we headed into the wild blue yonder. Marc is a most fabulous driver, even with a caravan attached driving on the left seems to be no problem for him.
On the drive to Hanmer, we noticed a big semi truck pulled over to the side of the road with smoke billowing out of it. We stopped by the side of the road, grabbed our caravan fire extinguisher and ran over. The driver was hauling what appeared to be grass cuttings. The cuttings had swooped down into the exhaust engine area where they had caught alight! Our extinguisher to the rescue! The driver was able to put out most of the fire, enough to be able to jack up the front of the semi and remove the dry grass that was causing the problem. Then another driver stopped, another small fire extinguisher appeared, more fire was put our, more grass removed, the police arrived, they had a small extinguisher...you get the point. The fire was slowly being tamped one small kitchen fire extinguisher at a time.
We reclaimed our now empty extinguisher and headed on our way. A few miles up the road we met the fire brigade heading over. Now we just need to find a place to recharge our extinguisher! After all, we may run into someone else who needs help.
We arrived at our Camping site in Hanmer around noon, and by 2:30, we had he awning to our caravan set up, water systems attached, tables and chairs out, and lunch made. Not bad for s first go! The camping parks here are pretty sweet. for 38NZD a night we get to park here, we get power for our caravan, water nearby, and we can use the toilet, shower and kitchen facilities. Very homey. Plus our caravan has fly screens on all of the windows, very important to keep out all of those little biting black flies!!
Yesterday was nice and sunny so we headed out to climb Mt. Isobel. Hot hot sunny day. We drank lots of water and made our to the top. I had a bit of a headache and still have a cold so let Marc climb the peak by himself, but the views from where I got to were still stunning. Hanmer is in a wide valley (Marc says it looks similar to the Okanogan) with mountains climbing on either side, with braided rivers criss crossing the bottom. Very picturesque. Marc was having some trouble with allergies, he had a very entertaining (for me) 5 minute sneezing fit. Once back to the caravan an allergy pill took care of the problem.
Today is a little cloudier, we'll be driving in the direction of Kaikoura soon to see what there is to see.
Erin n Marc
No comments:
Post a Comment