The road from Christchurch to Parnassus is not a great distance, about 145km, and very scenic with lots of wineries along the way however, we were happy to drive on past the wineries onto our destination.
Parnassus is one of the quieter parks in the NZMCA network, and when we arrived at the park just one other vehicle was there but by the evening 6 others had joined us. They all left the following morning so our next night there was spent on our own, not that we mind.
We had planned on staying just two nights but the weather was rubbish on Tuesday so without any pressing reason to leave, we stayed off the roads. In fact there were warnings out to stay off the roads as there were predicted high winds, snow to fall in the hills and generally a good day to stay indoors knitting whilst watching the olympics.
From here it was an even shorter drive of just 68km to Kaikoura. For some reason I woke early, well, early for me 😉, and with a glorious day unfolding we were on our way before 10am. What a stunning day to travel with lots of scenery to take in along the way.
We arrived at the Kaikoura NZMCA a park in time for lunch and settled in where we picked to be a good place. All of the grass areas are roped off at the moment but fortunately there are two levels of gravelled parking areas to choose from.
Whilst we were in Kaikoura we popped in to see Trevor & Susan, they have moved into their new house since we were here in April. We ended up have having dinner with them in their stunning new home overlooking South Bay. And of course I did my usual thing of forgetting to take a single photo. We had a lovely time with them over a very nice meal Susan made for us all and we look forward to seeing them again and see what they have done with their gardens.
You will have worked out by now that we only move on fine days, we choose not to travel in high winds, torrential rain or at night. We realise that we are fortunate not to have a schedule to keep to and can change plans to suit ourselves.
With that in mind, Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, the weather forecast for the next few days were dire with wind warnings and snow forecast so we packed up ready to leave. We got as far as the dump station at the Kaikoura NZMCA park (all of 100metres from where we were parked) when the wind started to blow, and blow, and blow. After emptying the tanks and with the van being rocked by the wind we looked at each other and said, nah, let’s go back and park up here until the bad weather passes. So we did exactly that.
The rain came down in torrents, and it got colder and colder, by late afternoon it was only just above zero.
Luckily the storm only lasted a couple of days before the sun came out again. This is the view out of the van door over a couple of days.
An interesting thing happened whilst we were in Kaikoura. Roy lost the little pouch that he keeps his hearing aid batteries in along with a couple of other things for his hearing aids. We searched and searched throughout the van and then the car and the ground in between but could not find it anywhere. A couple of days later we went to the supermarket where we were met at the entrance by the manager with a photo of Roy taken at the supermarket and with the hearing aid pouch in his hand asking if this was Roy’s? “Yes”, he said, “but how did you know it was mine? “. Well, they found it on the floor by the checkout, looked back through CCTV footage, found it was Roy who dropped it and printed off his picture. Then on camera they followed him to the car, got the reg of the car and when the car came into the car parking lot two days later, the camera picked up the reg and sent a text alert to the manager who met us at the entrance to the supermarket!! How amazing is that? Scary, that big brother is watching everything we do, but great that he got his pouch returned. And yes, he has now put his name and phone number inside it, just in case.
The Vanninis' Manoeuvres 