Funny how things happen.  I closed the last diary entry reflecting on how little had actually happened to us on a personal level since arriving in New Zealand.  We have met some lovely Kiwis, shared many tips about New Zealand with them and generally found them to be nice people, but little had actually happened to write about.  Well, we left off with us in a place called Tuatenpere, that has a nice campsite, some good sausages, but little else.  That night we landed ourselves up at a campsite near Gore called Dolamore Park and it is gorgeous.  The park was set up by the council from a donation made to them by the Dolamore family of £38,000 in 1947.  This donation allowed the council to keep the park up and running.  The park is a 95 hectare area of beautiful wild lands with little to spoil it apart from some excellently cut grass areas for picnicking and camping.  The night we arrived there were 4 campervans at the park.  We were soon set up and in the kitchen cooking dinner.  A little later on a man approached us and told us that he was closing the gates to the park and that they would be open again at 6am.  This man is Paul.  Paul lives in the house in the park, but works at the meat packaging factory about 20kms down the road.  Anyway, as we are talking a large Burmese/Siamese hybrid cat walks towards us, immediately Paul says “You didn’t see that” and then tells us that because the park is a bird sanctuary he is not allowed to have cats and that, because of the wildcat problem in New Zealand (there are packs of feral cats roaming NZ) they shoot them on site.  The cat that has walked over to us is named “Diesel” and belongs to his daughter who lives with her mother on the North Island, but is visiting Paul for 4 weeks during the holidays, she bought the cat, much to his shock, so they have had the cat locked up in the laundry room during the day and are letting it out at night.  He then tells us “The caretaker, Vic (lovely man), shot 2 the other day, I was immediately worried, but then I remembered it was alright, because we’ve only got the 1”.  Now, I don’t know about you but the logic used there was a special kind of logic.  To redeem himself from the bottom on the logic pond Paul has since told us how come a meat packer lives in a private house in the grounds of a stunning park.  Paul and his partner used to come to the park for picnics and kept on noticing that the house was empty, so he headed down the council offices and asked them how much they would charge him to live here.  Relieved to have somebody willing to live all the 12kms out from Gore (apparently the place wouldn’t rent because people found it too far to travel!!!) they offered it to him for NZ$90 per week (about £33 per week)…..it is stunning.  He moved in and he now lives in 95 hectares of gorgeously maintained lands in a lovely private house with stunning views.  Add to this the fact that tonight we are camping up in the private gardens because we told him that with all the social events here tomorrow we thought we wouldn’t get much sleep you have a nice guy that, though a little slow, gets there in the end and, it would seem, has enough intelligence to get the bargain of the century.

Tomorrow we are going to the “Moonshine” festival in Gore, hence the stopping here for 3 nights.  Already the competitors for tomorrow’s big cycle race are coming in large numbers and the site is getting very busy, but it doesn’t matter to us, we have a large private garden to ourselves, thanks to some fantastic hospitality.

Ah…the moonshine festival, well it was never meant to be.  We moved up into the mountain that morning instead, driving to Queenstown to get a few supplies.  Bit weird how a country like New Zealand with such hard ground doesn’t have anywhere supplying a tent peg armed with a spike but I digress.  We managed to get a few other bits sorted out, it was as we went to leave that I realised my schoolboy error.  I had been counting February as a 31 day month….first time in my life for this, nice to know that I am that far out of “reality” now.  The end result of this was that rather than have 8 days to check out the mountains before picking up my Mum at Queenstown she would be arriving in 5 days.  We drove a long way that day and landed ourselves in a nowhere town to sleep.  We cruised the mountain regions for a couple of days, there were some places that really stood out here, but for anybody wanting a stark environment that feels really remote for a few hours and reminds us a little of Mongolia then check out the Lindis Pass.

2 days after leaving Queenstown we pulled into Omarua, which is a very laid back desert town (more like a village to us, but to them it is fairly big).  We went to check out the campsite, but there was no shelter whatsoever.  Eventually we contacted the caretaker and rented a caravan off her.  We have never been in a caravan before and it was funny to be in 4 walls again.

All this sadness was blown into the past just a few minutes later as Craig pulled up and here was my Cousin Marianne’s firstborn Keanu, large as life saying “Hello” to me.  And thus started 2.5 weeks of family onslaught that we would find ourselves bathing in and fighting leaving.

For 2.5 weeks we were fed, given a bed and entertained by Justin’s family in Perth.  It was lovely to see them all and get to meet all the new faces.  Keanu is a delight, a bright and loving 3 (nearly 4) year old with no inhibitions, once in a while he does something out of character and you are reminded that he is a 3 year old not a 5 year old.  Throughout our time there a variety of friends came to visit and used us as story tellers, playmates and general trampolines.  Cyrus is Holly’s (Holly is my younger cousin) and is a bouncy, beefing little Tonka truck of a 6 month old boy.  He is already part of the travelling community having gone to England and Canada on holiday with his parents and he has a permanently happy demeanour and is very determined.  Charlotte is the youngest at 10 weeks when we first met her and 12.5 weeks when we left.  It is amazing to watch such a young child grow in the space of 2.5 weeks.  When we arrived she had feeding issues, but with a little experimentation Marianne and Craig had this under control and she was putting on great length, so it looks like she will follow her mother into the nearly 6’ range.  We spent a load of time with all the adult relatives as well, but apart from telling you about how they are having kids, their jobs, etc. it is just beautiful time spent with close relatives that I rarely see.  2.5 weeks was not enough, but travelling was calling us back to the road and we boarded a flight back to Sydney feeling that we were going to miss out on watching these children grow and change the way they had been for the past few weeks.

We landed back in Sydney and within a few hours were having a couple of drinks with my incredibly drunk sister and her not so sober boyfriend, Adrian.  The next 2 weeks were blurs of decision making, disappointments and delight.  There was a lot of family stuff to deal with, but that was our thing.  Finally 2 weeks later we left Australia, sad to have to say goodbye to Justin's family after nearly 6 weeks spent with them.  It would be weird to get back on the road again.  Luckily we had a decent plan to help with all this.  It was called, get to Gili Air and stop there for a while.