Sunday 4th to Monday 5th February – Foos recovery day and heading to the South Island

Sunday - I don’t know how long all of the traffic took to clear the area last night, but we were oblivious to it!  When I woke around 730am I stuck my head out, worried that there may be people in fluorescent jackets trying to move us on, but there wasn’t a soul about. Instead of sneaking quickly away, we ended up staying for a cuppa and pulling ourselves together before driving off to find a supermarket.  

Topping up enough to keep us going for our last 24 hours on the North island we headed to a practical camping spot.  No pretty scenery at Murphy’s Law Irish Pub in Drury, but good Wi-Fi and laundry, which was all we needed.  The weather was predicted to be a repeat of yesterday so, although we had twangs of guilt that we weren’t visiting areas of Auckland we should see, we both felt that we needed an easy day to recover so that we are ready for the South Island on Monday.  We have hardly stopped during the last few weeks and covered as much mileage on this island as I think is possible in the time we’ve had.

The karts - complete with 4 big batteries!

Monday – how to make the most of our last day in Auckland?  Well, there was due to be too much low-lying cloud to make the sky tower or skywalk in the city worthwhile. And Simon found a deal for Formula E (electric) karting which was conveniently close to the airport and our drop-off point for the camper. Of course that won!  We were booked in for 1030am and only raced against two others. Simon won.  We got some video footage on the go-pro, despite it falling off half way round! 

The course.... not sure what the bath tub's about...

Luckily a staff member spotted and rescued it before taking some shots of us.  It was fun, but strangely quiet compared to petrol karting, apart from the squeal of tyres as you slide around the corners.

We used the car park at the karting place to have a final tidy up of the van and pack all of our belongings away.  It was raining torrentially by this time.

Then it was off to Britz having filled up with gas etc for a straight forward and smooth drop-off.  We had driven 2506km in total, which cost us just over $150 in road tax which we’d calculated for. Not too bad when diesel fuel is so cheap.  We took their shuttle to the airport in perfect time to check in and grab a coffee whilst we waited for our 405pm flight.

The flight was perfectly on time and we were gifted a free sandwich and cup of tea each on board.  We weren’t quite sure why – is this a result of the issues and delays we encountered last time we used JetStar?!  They’re trying to fob us off and stop us complaining by using sandwiches?!

We arrived in Christchurch at 530pm, collected our bags and called for the free shuttle to our accommodation for the night - the Jucy Snooze budget hostel/hotel right near the airport.  As the name suggests, we weren’t in for anything special in our little white box room, but it would do.  We dumped our bags and headed straight to the Lone Star American-style Pub where we asked for the Superbowl to be put on (even though it had already finished in reality!).  This time last year we had been watching it in a random bar in Moab, Utah, the night we discovered how to camp in the States for free!  Ah, memories.  The New England Patriots, last year’s winners in a dramatic extra time battle, had made it to the final again versus the Philadelphia Eagles. It was very close, but we had forgotten how long those games go on.  We shared a bucket of coronas and some nachos to while the time away.  It was gone 9pm by the time the Eagles were victorious. We headed back to hotel to get some sleep in a room with four walls instead of four wheels for a change.