Drive frm Christchurch to Moeraki Boulders

Cheryl’s Birthday! We picked up the camper van, but got a hassle doing so, they said that our reservation had been canceled. Then tried to palm off a really thrashed looking vehicle which was cockeyed from the front, had a missing mirror, door loose, and peppered with dents and scrathes. As it was, we still got a very well worn vehicle (325KM – over 200K miles). It had lots of nice features, and probably was very nice in it’s first 100Kmi. It was still in amazing shape considering the mileage and the number of folks who must have rented it over the years.

We could go on and on about the many irritations, from broken tape player, broken speaker, fridge that constantly flew open throwing the contents of the fridge across the floor, brakes that faded to the floor, gutless engine that probably needed a ring job, no automatic trans as promised, and worst, a funky BO smell. But we still found it easy to drive, though powerless even on the slightest grade. We heard another couple say a camper rental place gave them a story about loosing reservations and sticking them with a substandard vehicle also.

After a long drive, we made it to Moerake, where there are perplexing spherical boulders on the beach, almost perfect spheres, as if man made. Beautiful with the surf rolling over them. We found a cool camp site not far away overlooking a pretty bay just before dark and watched the sunset. A good thing these days are so long here (light till 9PM), since we are driving so long each day.