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Weather really does make all the difference.In the sun, we spend time in beautiful wildernesses, in the rain they are muddy fields.When the evenings are warm, the camp sites we stay in are full of happy smiling people, doing things outdoors and chatting to all who pass.In the rain they resemble post war British holiday camps, full of miserable people grunting at each other as they dash to muddy floored, cold and damp toilet blocks.When the campervan and the outside world are all one, space is not an issue.When you do everything inside the small damp tin can, it can be the most cramped place in the world.For the few days before we got to Wanaka and for the few days since we left, our life has been rather wet and the novelty of living in a small campervan may have worn off.They certainly have for Jodie.
On a brighter note, after we left Wanaka we transited through Queenstown (which is not the concrete jungle we have been led to expect) and on to Te Anau, which is the launching point for a trip into Fijordland.There are two popular boat trips here; one to Milford Sounds and the other to Doubtful Sounds.We opted for doubtful as lost of people told us that Milford was now rather busy.Not sure what Milford would have been like, but Doubtful was gorgeous.Whilst it was raining (we had expected that as the area gets 7 wet days in 10 and about 7m annual rainfall) the clouds, occasional glimpses of the sun, rainbows of waterfalls added to the mystical atmosphere, with huge hills looming out of the clouds and moving shadows constantly changing the shapes of the mountains.The size of NZ became apparent when we learnt that the Sounds are in a national park which is about the same size of Wales (the main difference is that one is full of nasty little biting things that suck peoples blood from them and contribute little, and the other is full of Sandflies (sorry, cheap one)).It was a nice day out though and we also got to visit a huge hydroelectric plant that is 200m+ underground, and whilst I am not a geek I was impressed by the sheer scale of such a thing, especially when one considers how remote the place was.
After that trip we headed south again to Invercargill.We went from steep hills covered in trees to a much gentler countryside, with rolling hills and green pastures.It was also pretty empty and in the space of 100kms we saw about 10 vehicles of which 50% were campervans; this is not too unusual and I think the average on the open road is about a vehicle a mile.After glimpses of sun, by the time we arrived at the campsite it was pouring rain on a very cold night, and we were feeling somewhat miserable.
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