On To A New Adventure! New Zealand!

We were offered the opportunity to leave the Pole a week earlier than expected and we jumped at the chance. Unfortunately, this required that we pack and then make it to the plane within 2 hours. By the skin of our teeth, we made it to the plane on time, bags overflowing and out of breath. A quick goodbye to all our friends and we were FREE!! No more freezing our fingers off, no more working to near exhaustion, no more being out of breath after only climbing a flight of stairs.
Hooray!

We arrived in Christchurch, NZ, tired, but overjoyed. The air was warm and humid, there were trees and smells, sounds other than bulldozers and snow mobiles. Heaven. We spent the next two days walking around town and lounging in the Botanical Garden. Giggling hysterically about the fact that there were trees to climb, flowers to smell and grass to sit on. People must have thought we were nuts...and we probably were to a certain extent. After two days of decompressing, we went looking for and found a car to buy, figuring that it would be cheaper than taking the bus or renting. We found a dealership selling a car for $1500 Kiwi (about $1100US) who guaranteed us that in Auckland, their sister dealership would buy the car back at 50%. What a deal! Too good to be true! We bought the car, ran some errands and headed to Akaroa (about an hour away). Just inside Akaroa, right by the campground, the car died. No gears. It wouldn't budge. We had only had the car for 5 hours and already it was giving us trouble. It was after 5pm and all the mechanics were closed, so we spent the night in the campground and called the dealership the next morning. "I'll be right there to get you." was the reply. Cool. They offered to put in a new transmission and give us the car back. We stayed in Akaroa in the meantime and camped, hiked and went kayaking with dolphins. Not a bad way to spend a few days.

3 days later, we picked up the car and continued on our way. We went to the west coast, over the mountain pass,figuring if that didn't kill the car, then we were good. The car made it fine and 2 days later we were photographing glaciers and driving through lush, mostly unpopulated greenery. We passed the town of Haast, drove 40km to the nearest campground and then, blammo! It happened again. This time, the gears were slipping and to make matters worse, it was a Saturday night. No one would be open at that hour OR the nextday.We camped overnight and then tried to drive the car in low gear (the only gear that worked) back to Haast. We made it about halfway when we lost low gear. Luckily,a towing service was open that Sunday and we were able to have the car towed back to Haast and to get a room at the hotel.

We spent most of Sunday trying to relax and figuring out what we could do next. Would the dealership in Christchurch give us our money back? Would a mechanic in Haast be willing to buy our car for parts? How on earth were we going to get around New Zealand now? Early Monday morning, I called the dealership. Naturally, they were concerned and not sure of what to do. They couldn't pick us up, it was too far of a drive. We were expecting a huge runaround or a verbal battle, but after about half an hour of calling back and forth, they said we should come back to Christchurch and they would give us a different vehicle. "Just leave the car here?" we asked incredulously. "Yeah, just leave it. One of our mates will be going down there eventually and he can tow it back for us. "We couldn't believe our luck. A different car! We're now slowly working our way back to Christchurch to pick up our new car and continue our journey.

Wish us luck!