Sunday, June 7, 2009

Finally, We Made It!

This is the next morning, after we woke up and were about to head out of Greymouth.  We had parked here for the night.

From Greymouth, we planned to go through Arthur's Pass and into Christchurch where we would fly out the next day.  Arthur's Pass is a famous drive in the South island of New Zealand and it goes over a mountain.  When we got to the pass, though, we were told we had to put snow chains on our van if we wanted to continue driving because it was snowing on the top of the mountain.

So Eliz and I parked our van and started putting the snow chains on.  We had a brief demonstration on how to use them when we first picked up our van, but it was still difficult because it was freezing and windy.

Finally, after a slight struggle, we got the chains on!

When we finally got back into our van to continue up the mountain, though, our van wouldn't crank.  We were pretty aggravated at this point because we were on the side of a mountain and not many cars were passing on the two lane road.  We figured we needed to get jumped off, though, so we started flagging people down.


Finally this nice guy came along and jumped our van off, so we started heading up the mountain again.. with our snow chains on this time.

As we drove, though, we noticed that no other cars had snow chains on and we were getting passed by everybody!  Apparently, by the time we had gotten jumped off, it had stopped snowing so we didn't even need the chains anymore... but we couldn't stop driving because we didn't know if the van would crank back or not.

Finally, after about 1/2 an hour of getting passed and angry looks (because you have to drive slow with the chains on), we stopped and took off the chains without turning off the van.


This is further down the road on the way to Christchurch, I don't know what the purpose of this large doughnut was, but I had to get a quick picture with it.

Last time I was in Christchurch it was pouring down rain, and this time was no different.  It down-poured the entire time we were there and it was freezing!

I also tried to get money out of an ATM and a machine ate my card there, so that wasn't good.  Furthermore, at one point we were walking around Christchurch and couldn't find our way back to our van.  So, after an hour or so of walking around in the rain and in the dark, we got a taxi to drive us around to find it for us.

Then, after we found our van, we realized that it wouldn't crank again.  So we went to the police station and fire department, but nobody could help.  Finally we ended up flagging down another couple and they were able to give us a jump start and we made it to the airport.

Rainbow in Christchurch.

This is the Christ Church.  I think it is the only touristy place Elizabeth and I went inside of the whole trip.


Finally, though, after all of the headache, we made it to the airport and spent the night in our camper van there.  The next morning we had to wake up at 4am for our flight, so we turned in our van keys and flew out.

Despite the difficulties we had along the way, I definitely have to say that this was the best trip I have ever had.  It was such an adventure and so much fun! 




Since Elizabeth has been gone I have just mainly been hanging out and finishing up with my classes.  Now I am in the final few weeks of my stay in Australia and I have 3 exams to go until I am finished for good.  My friend Sarah Beth arrives in two days to visit, and after she leaves I will have only a week until I fly home.