Over The Hill
Trip Start
Oct 15, 2007
1
65
97
Trip End
Aug 24, 2008
Takaka,
South Island,
New Zealand
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
We broke the ascent up by stopping in laybys when the temperature started to top out and allowing the engine to cool, watching the steam billowing out and then filling the reservoir so that we could do it all again. Near the summit, the laybys got fewer and further between and the buses and campervans we were stuck behind seemed to slow down even more, so we were alarmingly close to the red section of the temperature gauge when we finally made it to the top. The views were pretty good though.
Rolling back down the hill with the clutch in, we were soon back to a more reasonable temperature but by now we had decided we should really get this overheating business checked out.
When we arrived in Takaka, we found a garage and explained to them what had been going on. They weren't able to check the van straight away but booked us in for the following day.
We spent a while looking around the really quite pleasant small town of Takaka and eating ice-cream. We had wanted to visit Farewell Spit, a sandbank peninsula stretching out from the northernmost point of South Island, which at 26km long above the water, with a further submerged 6km after that, is the longest sandspit in New Zealand. We decided to spent the afternoon there and return to Takaka for the evening.
Farewell Spit is a very attractive area, although somewhat windy. We spent a while wandering on the beaches, taking in the enormous skies. Jacob, taking photographs on a particularly windy stretch of beach, suddenly realised that the fact that he couldn't see clearly wasn't just due to the wind making his eyes water. His contact lens, precariously floating on a little puddle of tears due to the wind, had been knocked out by the camera view finder and blown away.
We spent a futile few minutes looking for a small contact lens on a large, very windy beach. Fairly obviously, it was nowhere to be found. Kirsty led Jacob, who had no depth perception, back to the van, where he put on his glasses. The lens he had lost was part of a pair we bought just before leaving the UK, which, although expensive, we had justified because the type Jacob wears usually last several years. This one had only four months active service to its name. Bugger.
We drove back towards Takaka, stopping at a nice little layby beside a stretch of beach to cook tea. Having eaten, Kirsty made use of a handful of sand to scour the burnt on bits of potato from the 'other' frying pan. This had been our standard dishwashing technique when working in the middle of nowhere in East Africa a few years back, and it stood us in quite good stead here too. Until this point, we had used only one of our two frying pans; the small, non-stick pan being adequate for most things. We had used the other pan this evening because it was larger, but 'non-stick' was not high on its list of features.
Arriving back in Takaka, we parked the van in a carpark behind the main street and went to The Wanderers, a nice looking pub that we had noticed earlier in the day. Tonight was jam night, so a small group of middle aged men were setting up various instruments in the corner. After a while, they started to play...and they weren't that great. They played for a while, then took a break. A few people were still twiddling guitars, so Jacob wandered over and did a bit of drumming. A very good pianist joined in. Kirsty decided that everyone else was doing a reasonable job of providing the musical entertainment, so sat back and enjoyed it.
A few songs later, Jacob gave the drummer his drums back and we went into the other room for a game of pool. We were about to set up another game when we noticed that the place was suddenly much quieter - it was closing. Somewhat earlier than we had been expecting, we left and headed back to the van.
The following morning, we took the van to the garage for her checkup. Whilst she was there, we went and checked our e-mail and booked ourselves tickets for the Hokitika Wild Foods Festival, a festival of...well, the name pretty much covers it. It was going to be taking place the weekend just after Jacob's birthday, so we decided to include it as part of the celebrations.
Back at the garage, we spoke to Fred, the mechanic. He had replaced the radiator cap, as the old one was not holding any pressure. He suspected that the head gasket was leaking, but suggested that we use a 'stop the leaks in my radiator' type product to see if that helped. The fan, which we hadn't heard come on at any point, was apparently working fine, although the lack of a cowl on it meant that it wasn't very effective. Not the best of news, but it could have been a lot worse. The mechanic also gave us some tips for getting up big hills without blowing up, so we decided to get underway and give them a try.
The plan, given the timing and location of the Hokitika Wild Foods Festival, was to overshoot Hokitika (about half way down the west coast) and go to Queenstown, spend a week or so in that area before heading back up to Hokitika, then cross over to the east coast through Christchurch to Dunedin, then back up to Christchurch to sell the van and fly out. Plan sorted, it was time for action.
