Our trip to Dunedin with Alexa's mom started off with a few minor hitches. First, misdirections sent us an hour in the wrong direction. Following that, our battery (which, as it turns out, was too large for the Corona) slid out of place and our car wouldn't start until a nice guy stopped and fixed it. Once we were on the road again, we failed to see a road sign and ended up going another half hour out of our way. These little problems set us back about three or four hours all told, but that wasn't too big of a deal. We continued on our merry little way. A few kilometers past a dinky little town, we were passing a farm when a raucous rattling filled our ears.
"Is that this car?" Jodi asked.
"Nah, I think it's some farming equipment," I said and scanned the farm for the source of the racket. A farmer on a four-wheeler with a cart full of sheep dogs in tow came racing down his driveway, and I ever-so-foolishly thought "aha! That's the noise!"
Wrong.
With a tremendous KATHUNK something flew out from the undercarriage of the car and smoke came billowing out in thick waves. As a final display of glory, the Corona breathed a brief-yet-powerful jet of flame from the front right of the hood before the engine cut off and I was forced to steer her off to the side of the road.
At first I remained under the influence of some naive optimism: hey, anything that goes wrong with a car can be fixed! Wrong again. According to the guy who came to tow us, a hole had been blown in the engine. I kept a little chunk of piston as a souvenir.
We were towed back to a garage in the dinky little town, and as we rounded the corner to the garage's back lot car graveyard, I realized our poor little Corona would never ride again. The mechanic tucked her in snugly between a smashed-up van and an old truck.
At that point we found ourselves in a bit of a pickle. Obviously we were stranded halfway between Queenstown and Dunedin. More importantly, a car is something of a necessity for our time in New Zealand. A combination of busing and walking will work out fine in Queenstown, but in a little over a month we're going to take the lengthy journey from Queenstown (a mere 3 hours from the bottom of the south island) all the way up to Kerikeri, a town basically at the tippy-top of the north island. Seeing our dilemma, the owner of the garage was kind enough to offer us a vehicle for sale. A 1993 something or other, with a manual transmission and close to 300,000 kilometers under its belt. Back when we bought the Corona, we were told any car under 250,000 is probably a safe bet, but after that it's risky. When I pointed that out to the would-be salesman, he replied, "Oh, no. Cars these days can easily last to 300, 350 K. Look how clean the car is--and it has no rust! Hand on my heart, this is a great deal. I wouldn't sell it if it wasn't road worthy." During the course of our discussion, the two-faced ratshit used the phrase "hand on my heart" at least a dozen times. In fact, if he'd used it one more time I probably would've pulled out his heart with my hand like that crazy native dude from Temple of Doom.
He then told us that even if we didn't buy the car, he would need $50 from us to tow our vehicle from his garage to the junkyard. No way. No fucking way. Maybe he thought we were stupid, but he's going to get something for our car when he scraps it. He's certainly not going to be out $50, at any rate.
We told him "okay, we just need to think about buying the car and we'll get back to you," because really, I have no problem with lying to a liar, and then hitched a bus back to another small town where we rented a car and drove to Dunedin.
Our experience in the town wasn't all bad, though. When we went to the information center to make a booking for a bus to Dunedin and found out the last bus was already full, the lady at the center was incredibly kind enough to offer us her car for the weekend. That's right, she was going to let three total strangers borrow her own personal car for the weekend. In the end we turned her down and went with a rental, though, because given our track record we didn't want to have something bad happen to her car.
Our time in Dunedin, if cut a bit short by the Corona deciding it was an opportune time to blow the hell up, was enjoyable. We ate out at a couple restaurants, toured the Speight's Brewery, and saw real live penguins in the wild.
First we went to Penguin Place, a reserve where yellow-eyed penguins nest. Everyday they swim 20 km out to sea to do their fishing, and every night they come back to the beach and below their slow, waddling journey back to their inland nests. They're unique from other penguins in that they aren't as social, and mating pairs keep to their own nests rather than nesting all in one group. They also nest further off-shore than other penguins, making their homes in the shelter of bushes, tall grass, and trees. The reserve had an elaborate system of covered trenches for tourists to view the penguins from. It's surrounded by farmland, which is part of the problem and the reason the reserve was created in the first place. Farmland doesn't provide the shelter yellow-eyed penguins need, so the reserve was made so they'd have the natural forests they need to nest in. It was quite strange seeing lambs and penguins hanging out together.
After leaving penguin place, we spotted a viewing point for a different species of penguin. The little blue penguins are the type we were supposed to see on Some's Island back in Wellington, but they were too busy hiding in their nests. Unlike their yellow-eyed cousins, the blue penguins don't come ashore until after dark, so we had to wait a good while. At long last, about ten of the little guys swam up to the beach in formation. They were no bigger than an average-sized pigeons, and they kept getting knocked over by the waves as they waddled up the beach! We didn't stay and watch for too long because we wanted to get back for Alexa's birthday dinner.
As we were leaving, the most incredible thing happened. Alexa and Jodi left about a minute before I did, because I was reluctant to leave before seeing the penguins up-close. When I caught up with them, they had stopped in the middle of the staircase back up to the car. Apparently a little blue penguin had walked out right in front of Alexa. It was quite possibly the cutest thing I've ever seen. It was just light enough out for us to see him, but not bright enough to photograph. Flash is forbidden for obvious reasons. We were able to stand and watch it for a few minutes before it waddled away, though. It was definitely the highlight of our trip to Dunedin, for me at least. Call me a dork, but I've always been fascinated with penguins and it was so cool to see the adorable little fluff-ball up close and personal.
I guess that's about it for Dunedin. Alexa and her mom went for a 4-hour spa treatment before we checked out the penguins, but I'm sure she'll blog about that later. As for the car situation, we've been walking to work. It's about 2.25 miles each way. On the bright side, I'm getting some extra exercise! I walk both ways, but Alexa takes the bus home because she normally works a little later than I do. Our long term solution is probably going to be to just rent a car when we need one. There are cheap enough rental companies here that renting will work out to the same price of buying another jalopy, and it carries far less risk.
Anyway, I think that's about enough for now, mainly because I'm getting tired of writing. In less than four days my dad will be here for his visit. Over the next two weeks I'll only be working two and a half days, so we'll have plenty of time to be out and about doing fun touristy things. Hopefully my next blog post will be filled with awesome tales of adventure, and 100% less engine explosions.
On to the pictures:
The massive hole in the Corona's engine:
The bar at the Speight's Brewery. Pretty much the only worthwhile part of the tour, as can be expected.
A yellow-eyed penguin being nice enough to strike a pose for the camera.
And some videos of the penguins in action!
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