Franz Josef Hotels
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Another not-so-positive rental car experience
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I am amazed at how isolated New Zealand is. Of course there are cities, but we seem to drive for hours between towns before seeing so much as a gas station. In fact, we have acquired an unfortunate habit of not looking at the gas gauge until it is at a quarter of a tank, and when you can drive 100km with only cows for company, this proves to be a problem. Three times so far we have been seriously concerned that we are going to end up stranded on the side of a country road in the middle of nowhere without gas. Each time, we miraculously made it to a gas station, but I'm sure 100 yards more and we would have puttered out. In order to avoid any future disaster, I decided to make a rule that any time we see a gas station, if the tank is at half full or less, we fill up. Because you never know when you will see one again. Hopefully this plan will work. Although we have been lucky with the gas, we are both surprised at the number of unfortunate circumstances we have already encountered (the cyclone, my toe, the car rental, etc.). We are, however, remaining fantastically optimistic, and it is helping things out quite a bit. We drove down to Wellington, and after checking into our hostel, decided to make use of the free-beer tickets we were given for the attached bar. At the bar, we made friends with the bar tenders and they asked us to go out with them after they closed (since it was a hostel bar they closed around 10). It was a fun night, and we got to see a few bars in the center of Wellington. The next morning, we had plans to take the 1pm ferry over to Nelson on the South Island, but of course our less-than-excellent-luck-streak was going full stream ahead. After sitting on the boat for an hour without moving, we were told that this boat would in fact not be leaving, and that we would have to get on the 5pm boat. We decided to spend a couple hours at a nearby beach reading, which made us feel a little bit better about having to wait another 3 hours. When we got back to the ferry dock a little before 5:00, we waited in our car in line for about 2 hours before finally boarding the boat for our 3 hour trip across to Nelson on the South Island. We consoled ourselves by saying that we got the chance to watch the on-boat movie, which was Two Weeks Notice. I wasn't expecting it to be very good (I love both Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant, but I had realistic expectations about a movie starring the two), but Kristin and I both actually really enjoyed it. Our "luck" didn't last long, though, as we soon realized that Nelson wasn't right where our boat dropped us off-it was about a 2 hour drive away. Although it was late when our boat arrived, we decided to drive it anyway so that we could get going right away in the morning. As it turned out, this was a bad idea. We got to Nelson around 11:30pm, and after driving to all the hostels on our list, soon realized that hostels apparently don't keep late-night reception hours. We even checked a few hotels, but the two that were open didn't have any available rooms. One desk clerk told us (in so many words) that we were screwed, because nothing was open this late. In the end, we ended up parking our car on a somewhat secluded hill overlooking the city and putting the seats back as far as they would go-it was no canopy bed, but it was pretty much our only option. After a very uncomfortable night's sleep, we headed to a hostel to check in and take much needed showers. I feel as though I should mention that we have been very backpacker-y, and have been going as many as 3 or 4 days without a shower, brushing our hair, and rarely wear makeup. For all the hassle my sister gives me for how I usually get ready for the day, she better be damn proud of me. From there, we headed to Abel Tasman for the day, which is a national park. It consisted mostly of many different beaches accessible only by boat or long hikes. As we were on a time limit, we opted for a 3 hour scenic boat tour, which would take us all around, make stops to pick up and drop off other people, and then take us back to the start. For some reason (call me crazy) I was expecting a "scenic boat tour" to be somewhat relaxing. Although it was anything but, it was still really fun. It turned out to be on a speed boat that sat 16 people, although for much of it we were the only ones. The water was rough since it was windy, and it was more like an amusement park ride than anything else. Kristin likened it to riding a snowmobile, which I have never done, but it seemed about right. We were flying over the waves and would be airborne for a good few seconds before coming crashing down. I'm somewhat surprised I don't have a bruised rear-end after three hours of that! At one stop along our tour, a group of girls about our age got on the boat. They worked at one of the local hostels and were having the time of their lives on this boat ride. They kept screaming and putting their hands up like they were on a roller coaster. We couldn't help but laugh along, and soon we were all laughing and begging the captain to do doughnuts (which he was more than happy to do). When the girls got off, we were sad to see them go, but we picked up a whole slew of other people, most of whom were older. The captain calmed down his driving, but the water was still chopping so the boat was still flying. One of the women on the boat really did not seem to be enjoying the wild ride, and Kristin and I couldn't keep a straight face when we noticed the look on hers (somewhat like she just ate a lemon-for the whole ride). After enjoying the complimentary pudding at our hostel, we went to bed early to try to make up for lost sleep from the night before.
The morning started off well enough, and we headed a few blocks away to a local market set up in a parking lot. There were stalls of crafts, clothing, fresh fruit, spreads, and much more. It was fun to walk around, and we bought a bag of plums to snack on in the car. We then left Nelson to head to the west coast. Unfortunately, on our way out of Nelson, our bad luck reared its ugly head once more. Kristin (who I feel I need to say is a very good and safe driver) happened to go straight at an intersection when she had a yield sign, and unfortunately, did not yield quite enough. And neither did the car coming straight at us. It was a minor incident, and felt more like a little "bump" than a "crash," but the bumpers of both cars were cracked, his blue paint got all over our front bumper, and his tire popped (I still don't really understand how that happened). He was very nice about it, and we exchanged as much information as we could without us having a permanent address or phone number here in New Zealand. We went back to the hostel to call our rental car company, who told us that as long as the car was still okay to drive, we could just deal with it when we dropped the car off. Unfortunately (I feel like I'm using that word a lot lately), the deductible in New Zealand tends to be a lot higher than in the US, and we are crossing our fingers that this doesn't completely empty our bank accounts. Kristin pointed out that she was thinking of getting a job in Sydney anyway, and this will just be the push she needs to do it. I must say, it has been great traveling with such an optimist. As we were about to leave the parking lot of the hostel, the manager came running over and tapped on our window. When we opened the door, she said, "are you the ones who just took out my brother's car?!" While we didn't necessarily agree that we "took out" his car, we acknowledged that yes, that had been us. She said that she was worried when he told her the people who hit him didn't have any contact information, and that it seemed "very dodgy," but that when he said our names she recognized them and assured us that she knew we weren't dodgy at all. I'm not sure whether her being his sister helped our hurt our case, but she seemed nice (as did he), and we are confident everything will work out all right. We finally got back on the road, and headed down the west coast (this was time #3 that we almost ran out of gas). We made a few stops along the way, including looking at the "pancake rocks" and blowholes, taking a few little 20-minute treks, and even stopping in the gold mining town of Ross, which was extremely tiny and extremely uneventful. We are now in the area of Franz Josef Glacier (which everyone here pronounces Glay-Cee-Air), and are planning to take the half-day glacial hike tomorrow morning. My toe was hurting pretty bad after our last hike, so I'm hoping it will be okay after tomorrow. We have decided that I am just an unlucky person, or maybe just clumsy-I really do tend to hurt myself a lot. Wish me luck!
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