What an eventful day! And I'm not just saying that! Starting the blog with two exclamation marks in the first paragraph probably spells trouble! Whoops! Four! Well, five then.
Anyway, we woke early to the dulcet tones of Mckayla serenading us with her new vocabulary skills. Very musical.
We decided that, being in the Art Deco city, we'd do a little self guided tour of the place so, after packing up the things, we took a trip out to the centre of town (via a half hour stop at the dump station). Did I mention that our campervan has some annoying little quirks? For instance, when everyone else pulls their van into their evening spot, they park with the best possible view. We park so that our power cord can reach the outlet. In fact, in Hastings, I neglected to mention that we had to ask to change sites because our power cord couldn't reach. Oh the embarrassment. Anyway, at this morning's stop, the fresh water hose wasn't long enough, nor was the grey water hose. So I basically had to drive up on the side of the building to get the hoses to reach. (No photos of this ... sorry.)
Anyway, once in Napier proper, we took a leisurely stroll around the town, turning an hour long tour into two hours. Well, Yasmin was on foot after all, and Mckayla's vocal abilities extend now to a highly aggravating 'eh'. Short, sharp, guttural and clearly 'not amused'. This was out in full force at all the inopportune moments. For instance when Deb ventured into the museum by accident without paying (didn't see the sign) and on trying to leave was challenged by Mckayla who clearly wasn't ready to.
For her part, Yasmin was trying to be helpful, getting Mckayla to say 'sorry' every time an 'eh' popped out, and also honing her photographic skills. She is now able to operate the zoom as well as normal shutter operation. But she is a sensitive thing. Being in charge, as she is, of the camera and of her subjects "stand there, no stand still mummy" you'd think that the photos would come out as you'd expected to, having posed for them. But just because you've posed for a photo doesn't bear any relation to your appearance in it. This seems quite deliberate, as we discovered when a series of 'portraits' were taken that didn't feature either or both of us. She was most offended that we didn't like her pictures, and had dared to 'smile' (laugh) about them. We learnt our lesson good and proper...
After the tour had concluded (a self tour concludes when you say it does), we decided to try to change some cash (being a Monday after all). After an initial false start (being advised that we'd get 79c NZ for 1AUD) we managed to conduct this relatively simple business quite successfully. Only twenty seven 'eh's from Mckayla during that part of the day.
Lunch was at a local bakery franchise called Heavenly Bakery, where pie and sausage roll and Bob the Builder was the order of the day. Following this, we walked around Ahuriri Estuary, on the northern side of Napier. This used to be a massive lagoon prior to the 1931 earthquake that turned Napier into the Art Deco capital of the world. Now it is 2m higher and is a shadow of its former self. Mckayla spent the whole time asleep, and Yasmin oscillated between good girl and whingeing girl: both a pleasure to behold in their own special way.
We finished this walk at about 3:45pm, and decided to head over to Taupo, only 194km away. The maps said this should take us about 2 hours, and we were quite prepared for a late night.
We very nearly didn't make it to Taupo.
Fortunately, the problem, if you can call it that, only arose ten kilometres or less from town. But that is still a long way when it is 5:30pm and you don't have any diesel and the engine has stalled and you've coasted to a halt outside the Opepe Forest sign. The EDC light was not our friend today. (Empty Diesel Container?) But God was looking out for us - He first sent two cars to stop to see what the problem was (there is not a single fuel stop between Napier and Taupo) and then to offer to take one of us into town. Gavin offered to go while Deb stayed with the truck/hotel.
The hapless Gavin was passenger with some employees of the local energy company, which supplied Taupo and Napier's power through geothermal power (largest in the Southern Hemisphere). They'd just been out to Napier on wind farm business (appeasing neighbours who DON'T get paid when someone puts a wind farm on their property) and were happy to give Gavin a lift to town. First stop was a truck stop, where Gavin was able to obtain a diesel canister and funnel, but no diesel. Negotiating skills failure, but he was able to get said items without paying or leaving his name - just a (foolish) promise to return before 7pm.
Next stop was a regular petrol station, where canister could be refilled.
Lovely employees of energy company offered to drive Gavin back to vehicle. On return trip, Gavin was informed that getting the diesel through the engine was crucial for success. But never fear, a hand pump located somewhere in the engine housing would assist this task.
Much gushing of thanks ensued when Gavin was deposited back with family. They filled the tank and commenced the process of pumping the diesel back through the engine. But where were the pumps? It was fast dawning (now that everyone had left us) that there were no pumps. Never fear - we have a mobile phone and the number of the hire company mechanic. He was able to confirm that you shouldn't let the engine run out of fuel (couldn't help but retort that we didn't do this purposely) and that a mechanic was our only hope but how could you get one at this time of night (6:25pm) when out of the blue arrives a diesel mechanic type to save the day.
He was required to assuage the fears of the hire company dude. But was charmed the pants off him, and we set to work re-priming (bleeding) the engine. Unfortunately, this required another trip back to obtain more diesel, and then the arduous task of dripping it into the thing where it had to go (he never did name it for us). But all was fixed, and he even escorted us back into town so Gav could drop the equipment back only a mere 20 minutes late.
We then went to the motor vehicle park blah blah blah had dinner at some cheap but nice restaurant, etc with ice cream and stuff. But we had a big day! Wow.
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