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We left Manopouri and decided to drive a little up the road towards the doubtful sounds. The road was beautiful and we stopped at the bottom of Mt Burns (1645m ... We were 900m up already!) and climbed to the top. We had a beautiful view over the lakes and the mountains. We didn't drive any further up the road as it was pretty gravelly and we had been warned that it got worse!
We also stopped off at Clifden Suspension Bridge built in 1899 which was quite impressive, not quite like the Clifton one in Bristol though!! We found a nice simple DOC freesite at Thicket Burn and spent the night there chatting to a couple from France by a fire.
The next morning we woke very excited as we had booked our Christmas treat to ourselves as a Jet boat ride across Lake Hauroko (New Zealand's deepest lake) and down the Wairaurahiri River and back. It was an awesome day!!! Jonah the driver of the boat runs the business with his wife Joyce. They are really keen on protecting the birds in the area. They do this by setting traps to catch the rats, possums, weasels and stoats. All these animals were introduced to the country but it has all resulted in either making some birds (mostly the birds with ground nests) extinct or very nearly so like the kiwi an the blue duck.
Johan stopped every so often to show us a trap or explain about the bush or the birds or the pests.
The boat ride was soooo gooood! It was 74k all together. The lake when we set off in the morning was really windy so really choppy . . . The boat was pretty bumpy and wet!! When we got to the river it was a little more sheltered but the ride definitely didn't get dull! The river was really hard to navigate for Johan it was full of sharp corners rocks and fallen trees, but he had been doing the trip for 17years and knew it like the back of his hand. Which made it really exciting. We got dropped off for a wander at the beach at the end of the river whilst Johan prepared a beautiful BBQ of venison, pork and beef with yummy salads for lunch. We walked up the river a bit after lunch and Johan said that he would pick us up by the swing bridge. We waited and waited but the boat did not come. After a while of waiting with a family on the same trip, (from Chester and the Wife knows James' Auntie!) the outcome was that the tide had gone out too much whilst we had been eating, leaving the twin engined (Lexus v8s) jet boat high and dry. So with no access to roads or tractors for help, a helicopter was called out to lift the front of the boat back over into the water for the return trip.(very exciting for all concerned except Johan who seemed very embarrassed!! Unfortunately the boat was a bit damaged but was still able to get us back. The return trip was a lot more sedate compared to the fast bumpy ride we had down the cascades and sharp corners on the way there, until we got back to the lake!! An all together bumpy ride across the lake again, but was in no means less exciting it just gave us a better view of the surroundings. That night we camped in the same place near the lake huroko in order to pay Johan, who had trusted us over night due to not have any receipts left in his truck! Like all kiwi's, very trusting!
Well that next morning for some reason James noticed a rather worrying split on the inside of one the front tyres on the van. (Note to anyone buying a vehicle check it has a jack and 'good' access to the spare wheel.) Like most vans the spare wheel is underneath at the back on the vehicle and has a safety nut or something to stop people stealing the wheel. This van was no exception but failed to have the metal rod ( or key) to get the wheel off. We therefore could not do much! Being a weekend no garages were open for 80km and even then it closed at 12! We left a kind French couple who had tried to help us and limped through various small towns to near Invercargill and struck lucky at a garage, just about to close, he welded up a key on a rod that would get the spare wheel off and sent us away with everything we needed, even a spare tyre and a jack! All in for $70 (£35) which was very good considering our situation! With all that sorted Gen motored on with a spring in her wheel!
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