Week 3

Hello again, well now completed week 3 and it has been eventful to say the least! We planned to go to Gisborne down the cost for Easter to house sit for one of Malcolm's colleagues but it did not quite go to plan!
We picked up our lovely shiny new car a 2010 Honda Jazz on Wednesday and set off on Friday stopping on the way near Ohope to have morning coffee with Ruth and John, relatives of a good friend in Altrincham.
After a lovely walk on the beach with them we set off through the 80 km Waioeka Gorge to Gisbourne only to hit a very large rock about 40km in, which took the sump out!.
So big bump, massive noises and crashes, we VERY quickly stopped, to see the oil pouring out of a huge hole.
No phone reception in the gorge, so it was decided that I (Shona) would hitch a lift back to Opotiki and try to get a tow truck???!!!. Not only could I not pronounce the names of the places we were in, we had not brought any details of the insurance and recovery AND it is a major holiday on Good Friday here!. In fact we hadn't even paid for the insurance yet!!
Everyone we flagged down stopped and were very kind but the small car with 4 huge Maoiri blokes had no room (phew!) nor did the car full of indian people. Then a farmer and his wife stopped and I got a lift with them, they dropped me at the petrol station in Opotiki. I managed to google the number and get through to breakdown who said I had to  phone insurance as it was an accident!. Anyway eventually a great chap called Graham in his tow truck picked me up and took me back through the gorge to Malcolm.

The car was them left in a garage full of wrecks!, in the mean time Ruth and John came 40 minutes to rescue us in the most horrendous electrical storm with waterfalls of rain, thunder and lightning and put us up for 2 nights. I was as much of a wreck as the car!
After 2 days of great company in their amazing smallholding we hired a car in Whakatane (pronounced Facatane - think fa as in fax!) and did go to Gisbourne where the cat in the house we were supposed to be house sitting was very pleased to see us.
I drove back through the gorge with much trepidation but it was fine, the gorge is very sheer and there are lots of rockfalls especially after the amount of rain we have had recently, but I think we were just extremely unlucky.
So now waiting for the car to be towed back to Honda where we bought it less than a week ago and to pick up the courtesy car.
Amazing Malcolm and I have both been driving since we were 17 and never had to claim on insurance or get a car towed.

We did enjoy Gisbourne and say where Captain Cook landed, he apparently misunderstood the welcome Haka and shot quite a few of the locals on first meeting so they were not helpful and he sailed off without provisions naming it Poverty Bay!

Lets hope this week is calmer!

HAPPY EASTER.