Sunday, October 17, 2010

Spring shoots...for a day.

After what seems like an epoch, I finally packed the family and the camping gear into the bus and headed off for a night away.  We were going to go camp at Kakanui, but there was a blustery north-easter blowing, and I decided that discretion being the better part of valour, (and in the interests of a good night's sleep) to go camp in the shelter of the forest instead.  It was getting late by the time we pulled into a deserted campsite, and we'd just outrun a long, low cloud bank into the last of the evening sun.  Food, bed and books - that was about it.



In the morning the forecast sun was hiding above said cloudbank, which had advanced further north during the night.  So after breakfast we packed up and headed inland, up towards Kurow.  We checked out some mental rock formations, the Elephant Rocks, where parts of the first Narnia film were shot. 



Long lazy lunches, ice-cream stops, and a minor emergency involving a frayed throttle cable and a hunt for the right sized hex key ensued - a typical day back in the kombi saddle.  We cruised back down a coast with surf not quite worth getting wet for and found the beach camp where we were going to stay, where my wife took a leak and came back wearing an expression that said very clearly, "We are never staying there..."  

A few miles down the road we found another site which was wonderful - all good intelligence for the summer ahead.  New Zealand is, at times like this, a very easy place to be.