Chores

Today, I awoke, bright and early at 7am. Alex was just crawling back to bed having got up at the crazy hour of 4am to stream the F1 race and possible championship-decider onto the pc for live viewing from Brazil. As such, while I was rustling up breakfast (Milo cereal and our fabulous new discovery, powdered milk!) to assuage the hunger, he was curled up in the duvet, his head barely visible. In fact, its possible he transformed into a duvet, as the only real Alex-identifiying feature was the voice that mumbled out of it every so often in response to my chattering.
Once we were both awake and fed, the morning began in earnest. We headed off out of Nelson to find the recommended mechanics on from Tahunanui Beach. After abandoning poor Newt to the car doctor, we wandered off into the industrial district (which is where we now found ourselves) and tried to amused ourselves for an hour. This was not too hard, as we found a Homebase-style warehouse to walk around gawping at patio furniture. Luckily, it also had a brilliant little cheap cafe inside too, so after boring of the furniture (0.5 seconds) we had coffee and chai. Yum. We also had an in-depth discussion of English Politics for some random reason, much to the interest of the friendly staff who thought it amusing that we both had 'Kent' on our clothes and had also lived in Kent. We are both thinking of getting new jumpers, or else working out some sort of advertising fee from UKC for our patriotic duties overseas.
Back at the garage, we discovered the mechanic had replaced the battery which was epically destroyed and also some of the cables which were frosted in green and blue battery acid. Even better, he sorted it all out for us and charged Spaceships the bill, which they agreed to, as they should, since we had nothing to do with it. Thank-you Spaceships! On we drove.
Into town again we popped back to the library in order to re-charge and continue looking at the books. It was during this time however, that Nelson struck us. Out of the window, I saw the ticket guy at the car. We tried, we failed, we were ticketed. Grr.
Deciding Nelson was no longer for us, we abandoned New Zealand's 2nd oldest settlement and headed towards Westport, as the weather seemed set to stay rainy for the next week and so we will come back to Abel Tasman on the way up again. Bizarrely, we were assured, yet again, by the native Kiwi mechanic that 'this weather is not usual' and no-one knows why its raining so much. We know. It is because we came. Soon, we shall patent this and become millionaires, as we can induce countries to rain even if they are in draught. Oz is going to worship as as gods when we get there and it starts pouring.
The drive took us through increasingly rugged mountains, limestone jags playing host to millions of tiny waterfalls, all meeting up in the Buller River. We have stopped for the night at a campsite (5 days without a shower is more than people living in a small enclosed space should have to bear) and will continue on the road tomorrow.
Argh. This campsite. I shall find out what its name is when we leave so it can be properly shamed.
We drive in, pay a surprisingly cheap rate, pull up in a spot. It is practically empty, all well and good. It seems like a nice place. There is a view over the gorge and river, the other side looks over forested mountains. It is all to lull you into a false sense of security. I go for my long-awaited shower. First, I spend about 15 minutes walking all round the massive site just trying to locate the showers. When I finally find them, they are not the luxury I was hoping for. A metre square cubicle, with badly locking door. A slippery floor and freezing cold air. No lights at all. To make this dark box of cold misery worse...the shower was on a timer! Two dollars for SIX minutes! Daylight robbery. Or in this case, dark robbery. Grr. What was even worse, is after Alex got back from his shower, looking unbelievably relaxed and pleased with himself, he had managed to find the closet thing to Heaven in a shower on the other side of the campsite. The meter was broken, so he paid no money for it. It was entirely not fair. I dislike the campsite.
There are also sandflies. Many of them. This is amusing, as Alex has taken to sitting clasping the open jar of Marmite to him, to ward off the blighters. He dislikes Marmite, but so do the flies. He makes faces. It is hilarious.