Whew! Sorry for the lack of update in the past few days. We've been whirlwinding about on our way North and in the confusion we haven't had much time to update. But I promise that will be remedied... Now.
From Dunedin - and the nightmare that ended up costing somewhere in the vicinity of $700NZD (some of the repairs were less expensive than we expected), we felt very eager to continue on our journey. The next stop was Mt. Cook. Some of you may have noticed that we've been zig-zag-ing our way all over the South Island. This is because the roads don't exactly go everywhere. This means if you want to see Mt. Cook and you are on the West Coast, you either have to go way North or way South. Also this means that you can't see the North end of the South Island without retracing your steps back down again (its a dead end).
Here's the route we took getting to Mt. Cook:
It was a long drive, but at the end of it we found Mt. Cook (the highest peak in NZ) and did some hiking the following day. The pictures of Mt. Cook are below:
This is driving up to Mt. Cook - there is a ton of roadkill, and many vulture-like birds that are eager to pick their bones. So here's one of them that the Beast scared off and Mt. Cook in the background.
On our hike up the hill I took this picture. If you enlarge it you can just barely make out a parking lot down there. It's actually a campsite - and where we stayed the night before - the Beast is happily sunning itself down there. So you can see how far we hiked (and in the next pictures too)
This is the trail going up the mountain. Very steep - and little room for mistakes. Luckily we didn't make any (although on the way down my knees were shaking a bit).
Here's the Hooker Glacier. Once again we didn't have crampons (they sold them at a nearby hotel for about $400 but it wouldn't have been worth it). This glacier was much better than the Franz-Josef one, and the area was much less of a tourist-trap. Although with that being said, there was a FANCY hotel called Hermitage for all those first-class travellers to Mt. Cook (we used their toilets - hehe).
This is as high as we got before we turned back. We ate a late lunch, climbed down, and continued on our way. Next stop - Christchurch and getting our Warrant of Fitness done.
Continue to Christchurch (B and A are switched - whoops!) where we stayed overnight. Sunset and the moon shining on the beach - at the same time no less - amazing.
The next morning after getting the handbrake repaired, by one of the nicest guys we've met thus far (it was a Saturday and nobody was open and this guy fixed a bunch of stuff for only $30). We got the Warrant of Fitness done in about 10 minutes. The Rego, as they call it here (basically the vehicle's registration with the government), took less time but costed 4 times as much! The WOF cost $25 and the Rego cost around $96.00 (we got it for 6 months so the next owners won't have to)! Whoever gets the Beast next is going to be very lucky indeed - we've made sure of that I'd say.
Yesterday we continued onto Nelson, and arrived both hungry and tired. A shower and some of Ayu's pasta took care of that. Now, we're sitting in a one of the holiday parks, hooked up to a powered site and planning our next moves. There's a few more places we'd like to see on the North end of the South Island before the ferry takes us back to the North Island at 7:00PM on Tuesday March 25.
We've listed the Beast on www.trademe.co.nz which is basically New Zealand's version of eBay which was where we bought the van 2 months ago. So far there have been lots of bidders because I set the reserve very low ($1) so that it would sell. We can't possibly keep it if it doesn't sell, so I thought it a good idea. Speaking of which - I wanted to add a picture of our fridge for those looking at this site from Trademe - so here it is (I ran out of picture space in my ad).
The auction ends on March 31st and we plan on leaving the country April 3rd and going to Malaysia for the time being (depending on getting our tickets - we found some cheap ones but a New Zealand credit card holder has to buy it - so we're still in the process of figuring that out). Will keep you all updated. Until later...
From Taupo, three days ago, we traveled up to Hamilton to meet the first lookers at our van. We stayed overnight there and the following day met them. They were a nice elderly couple and we brought the van to their son who was a panelbeater (that's the term for auto body worker here). He had a look and estimated that to fix all of the unseen rust around the front pillars (remember the iceberg) would cost about $4,000 NZD. He also said there was a slight petrol (gasoline) leak that he could smell, but couldn't see. Otherwise he said for its age it was really good looking. So that was promising.
After that we back-tracked a bit to get to our other looker in Matamata. We were in Matamata (which was where they filmed the Shire in Lord of the Rings) showing a potential buyer the Beast, and in the bathroom stall was this sign: 
I thought it was hilarious and didn't understand it at all so I took a picture. When I showed it to Ayu she knew exactly what it meant - evidently because the place is a hot spot for Asian tourists - many of whom are used to squatting over a ground-level toilet - means they do the same on a regular toilet! I was shocked to say the least (I don't even know how you could balance up there)!
Afterwards, we continued up to Auckland taking a different route than normally, and stayed on the East side two nights ago. Yesterday we met a third looker on the West side, and now we're back in Auckland city awaiting the end of our auction. Right now the bidding is up to $4,010 (but there is still 6 more hours). Stay tuned!
