Day 10. Bernard Troubles

It seems bumpy beginnings is a continuing trend. After managing to catch 3, maybe 4, hours sleep (which is an improvement on our night at Mistletoe Bay) we eventually admitted defeat and got up, to find that the two other couples we were sharing the camping site with had already gotten off. It was a little weird being literally in the middle of nowhere, kind of nice too though. Aside from the fact they must have left ridiculously early everything went smoothly, we packed up the car and got ready in barely any time, so far so good until...

Bernard wouldn’t start. Not like last time where he was chuddering and then stopping. Oh no, this time he literally did nothing. We turned the key, there was a click and then… nothing.

We suspected a flat battery and after ringing Axel (he had a flat battery a week ago) it was confirmed. Bernard was outa charge. Now here comes the fun bit, we’re in the middle of nowhere, Mistletoe Bay (the last sighting of civilization) was over an hours walk and there’d be no guarantee they’re have jump leads. So we ended up standing by the side of the road and just holding our hands out. On any other road in NZ this really would be an amazing idea as Kiwi’s are renown for their helpfulness, the problem wasn’t that we didn’t think people would stop, it was the fact there was no one to stop. The road was deserted - after driving for two hours yesterday we saw a grand total of 1 other car.

I can’t even begin to explain how incredibly lucky we were, after about 5 minutes a car drives up and stops (two men working for Marlborough lines) and although they didn’t have jump leads they offered to at least tow the car up to the road (the campsite was down a pretty steep hill). And about  just as they were driving down to help us another car pulls up (this time a man working for the department of conservation who was emptying waste) and fortunately he actually has jump leads!

Long story short George must have left the lights on, we charged Bernard up, thanked them all profusely and finally got on our way!

The drive to Nelson was long, and full of twists, and sharp turns but we managed to get here without stopping (although we both spent a good portion of it being nauseous). We thought about stopping at Pelorous Bridge but neither of us could face another night camping. Sadly we saw it as we drove past and it was beautiful, I wish we could have stopped but we really just wanted to get to Nelson - plus we were too scared to stop the car!

My attempt at taking a photo of the view down to Nelson

 The van that was going 30 on a 100 road! There was massive queue not long after I took this photo!

We’ve checked into our hostel, The Bug, which is very cute, and the rest of today I think we’re just going to relax, sleep, eat and decide what to do on the next leg of our New Zealand adventure!

P.S I'm covered in insect (mosquito) bites! It's annoying because I've been using buy repellent and George hasn't yet I've got over ten giant big red blobs while he only had two little red dots!