Off on our Trip South

An early start to our holiday with a 5am alarm call, into the caravan and off for a bit of breakfast at Macca's in Petone.   Not the smartest of decisions and neither of us felt too clever afterwards.   This saw us arrive at the Interislander terminal at about 6:20am on a nice calm morning.

Sunrise over the eastern hills

We were first in line in the caravan/motorhome lane and settled down to await the arrival of our three travelling companions.      Loading started about 7:30am, on went the ignition and, what a great start, our engine wouldn't turn over!, a problem we have had previously.     A jump start battery didn't help and with a rise in stress levels we advised the loader that we were stuck and holding up his next line of vehicles.   With his assistance we jump started the car from his work vehicle after a few failed attempts Geoff No 2  (one of the others with us), tweaked the battery terminal and the car burst into life.   Finally we were parked aboard for the sailing.  A nice calm crossing on the Kaitaki.

MV Kaitaki

Tory Channel

Arriving in Picton the others parked up for lunch while Pauline and I headed to Blenheim to find an auto electrician.   We where fortunate to find a very helpful electrician at the battery mart franchise in Blenheim and after a few tests he determined that the anti corrosion pads under the terminals were stopping the terminal from seating properly and making good contact.     The battery tested OK
but was starting to show some problems so we decided to replace it with a new one ($268) With that done we headed off to our overnight stop at Waterlea Racecourse,  a POP stop with water and toilets for $5 a night.

Waterlea Racecourse POP

We had a visit from Brian an old friend of mine who lives in Blenheim and a former workmate of Robin  and I at Fire Service National Headquarters.

After dinner we all went for a walk around the perimeter of the racecourse including some gymnastics to get under the rails much to everyone's amusement.

Off for a Constitutional                    Robin & Jenny try the Hurdles !