Troubled times

We were sad to leave Hanmer but we had a few problems to deal with. Firstly, the fridge had decided that the repairs done by Nelson Motorhomes were nothing but temporary, so the temperatures inside the fridge and freezer were rising and things were starting to defrost. It was a relief to be able to park over at Sharon and Chris’s house and hook up to power, and also to put our frozen food in her freezer. It seemed the fridge went well on power so it was evidently a gas issue. No-one could see us over the weekend, but we had someone arranged to come to us on Monday at 10am.

Another problem was that I lost my footing on a steep gravel slope in Hamner, just before we left, and my hip gave a “clunk”, then hurt, a lot. I needed to rest up a bit (and take some pills) to get over that.

As usual, my cousin Sharon, and Chris were wonderful, lending us their old Rav to drive around in, and keeping their gates shut so the dogs could wander around the section.

On Saturday we took advantage of the car and drove to Birdlings Flat. We had been there before, and it would be grandson Theo’s idea of paradise, being able to fossick on the beach for gemstones. We had a great time, but did not linger too long and my hip did not like the loose metal or the repeated bending. I had packed a picnic lunch, so after having that we had a quick tour of the gemstone museum and then returned home.

The motorhome repairman duly arrived on Monday and it was clear from the start he knew what he was doing, so all was fixed fairly promptly. We had confidence that it would stay fixed this time so we loaded up the freezer again and headed south to Ashburton.

A compulsory stop for me is always Ashford’s mill craft shop where I purchased the yarn for my next project and we made our way to our park over property for the night, Donegal Downs. This is a charming place, complete with chooks, miniature ponies and big tame black sheep. The owners warmly welcomed us back.

As predicted, the rain came in during the afternoon, but this property was sheltered and solid under our wheels.

The next morning it was still quite gloomy and we were tempted to stay on, but made a move into town. Ashburton has a beautiful domain, with plenty of ducks, presumably because it is duck shooting season. Beau and Hunter were pretty keen to have a go at them, but of course, were tightly leashed.

The middle of town has been done up a bit as well, with a lovely fountain in the centre.

We are now headed inland to Geraldine first of all, then on to Tekapo.