Stories from NZ....

Well, if we came to New Zealand looking for adventure, we were successful!

The following pictures/stories will include: blinkers, sheep, driving, scarves, Milford Sound, gas stations, and high anxiety moments!

Holy sh!t, look at all the sheep!! :) They were lining the mountainsides and roads everywhere...

On our drive to Milford Sound, these clouds were lingering in all of the valleys.




YES....

1)I am driving...

2) On the right hand side of the car...

3)On the left side of the road...

4) With a winter hat & scarf on...

(After the first few roundabouts, and windshieldwashers instead of blinkers, I was feeling pretty comfortable.....with the driving, not the cold!)






I'm ducking down because these rocks are in a riverbed just below a one lane bridge in the mountains near Milford Sound. Nothing scarier than turning the corner and preparing to cross the bridge hoping another car doesn't come barreling around from the other direction!

The drive there was full of anxiety due to the road conditions and gas tank issues.....but the views at Milford Sound were worth the drive. It was like an area of serenity surrounded by the chaos of the rugged mountain terrain.

Andy took this shot on his own...Sunset at Milford Sound.

I'd say I'm doing pretty well with all the nature stuff for a city girl...I know I know, most people probably wouldn't hike around carrying their purse....but hey, I was out there hiking right??! Someone needs to be the "mule" and carry all of our crap around....Maps (check) Sunglasses x2 (check) Passports when needed (check) Camera/iPhone (check) Kleenex (check) Credit Card/local currency (check) granola bars...water bottle (check) rental car key (check)......so actually, now that I think about it, let's not call it my purse....let's just call it our lives.....so yes, I carried our lives around while we were hiking! :)


Now, if you ever travel to NZ and plan to rent a car...here's a little rule of thumb.

LITERALLY, fill the gas tank whenever you see a gas station. No joke. Because there will probably not be another one on the road for a few hours....and if there is....it may not be attended/in working condition/accept cash/your credit cards...

You know there's a story behind this....I'll give you the short version because I need to get some sleep.

We left at 6:45 am to make the drive to Milford Sound. We had 1/4 tank of gas, so we stopped in town at the gas station, but it wasn't open and "pay at the pump" didn't exist, so we started our journey and decided we would get gas in the next town. It was dark out still, so navigating through the winding roads was stressful enough. There were no towns in sight...... We approached the big mountain pass and our drive became even more difficult...our little rental car didn't go up the mountain roads too quickly....anyhow as we were making our way through the mountain, I glanced over at the gas gauge when Andy was driving and out of the corner of my eye, noticed that it was near E....my heart was racing, but I didn't say anything, because really, what is saying anything going to do in that situation?? Make a BP Station appear? I think not. You could have cut the tension in the car with a knife!

Andy asked me to look and see how far the next town was from the mountain pass. I looked and found "Terras" listed on our map, but really being listed doesn't mean anything, because the town we stayed that night in was HUGE on the map and it only had 216 residents....I told him it seemed like it would be 30km after the pass to Terras. (Sidenote: I failed a few "map tests" in geography in middle school....) So we kept on chugging along.....my heart was racing....in fact, if we could have hooked my heart up to the car, we would have had no problem flying up all of the mountain roads!!

Andy and I both felt better after clearing the mountains, but we decided we better start looking for a good place to stop and ask for help because we knew we were going to run out of gas any second. At the sight of any farm, you could see us both process if we should stop the car there...we decided to keep going and eventually saw the sign for Terras!! Woohoo civilization....maybe. We found one gas station.....

Andy and I were both so excited to see this ghetto old gas pump and credit card machine next to it!!! Woooohooo! HOWEVER....of course, our cards did not work....and the shop that this gas tank was located outside of....didn't open for three more hours....

and this was what our gas gauge looked like....literally on E.

Amazingly, within five minutes a car pulled up a young girl about our age rushing to work. I told her I had $20 cash and asked if she would use her card to get us some gas. Because she is the nicest person ever, like all the Kiwis are (NZ residents...) she said NO WORRIES. Thank God!!!

The $20 in gas got us to the next town (about 35 km away) where there was a real gas station and we paid about $65 more to fill up the rest of the tank....

Oh yes, just another adventure on this crazy New Zealand holiday....

By the way, tonight we are back at the little one room cabin in the middle of nowhere. We loved it so much, we came back!

xoxo more stories to come...

J&A