If you asked me in my last blog post where I would be on May 17, I would have leafed through my calendar and responded: "Oamaru - Ryan and I will be pruning plum trees for this family!" I would then pull up their photo on the WWOOFing webpage and show you a family and their dog.
We aren't in Oamaru.
After selling Moncho, my first kiwi car, to a coworker to get out of repairing the windshield, I purchased Emmy the Emina. Emmy is (or should I say, was) a 2003 Toyota minivan a bunch of my coworkers bought together for harvest. She seemed like a sturdy enough vehicle, and she runs on diesel (MUCH cheaper here). The only weird thing about Emmy: she is a Toyota Emina. As in someone sat down in their marketing meeting and said "Hey guys, I think we should call this car an Emina." Then, someone said, "Yeah! That's a really good idea!" and proceeded to put the name on a bunch of cars. I was ready to love Emmy unconditionally, regardless of her terrible model name. We drove from Blenheim down to Christchurch to drop off her previous owners at Jucy Rentals to get their camper van for their kiwi adventure. From there, we headed to Queenstown to meet up with Ryan. For those of you who aren't familiar with driving around New Zealand - it is much larger than it appears on maps. Blenheim to Christchurch took us at least 4 hours. Probably 5. I stopped counting because I was getting so discouraged that Christchurch is less than halfway to Queenstown. Around 7pm, Emmy and I were three hours out of Christchurch and still had about three hours to go before we were done driving. Emmy was struggling up some hills, but we were making awesome time, regardless of the rain, because there were no other cars on the road. Then, Emmy died. She overheated really quickly, then all the lights on the dashboard came on, and she turned herself off. Forever.
We coasted to the side of the road, and I began to assess the situation. There were no visible lights anywhere. My cell phone was almost dead. I don't have the New Zealand version of AAA and all of my stuff is strewn about the van because I was planning on owning it for at least a couple months and used this as an excuse to avoid actually packing my belongings into suitcases. So, I was in the middle of nowhere, in the rain, with no obvious solution. I decided I wanted to check the oil since it is one of the only things I know how to do on a car. I popped the hood and jumped out into the rain, and using my cell phone as a flashlight, quickly learned that I do not in fact know how to check the oil in Emmy (it was under the passenger seat, whoever came up with the Emina idea must have also been in charge of designing the engine). I got back in the car, and did what any stupid American in my situation would do: I called the police. The receptionist told me there weren't any officers on duty near where I was. In the background, I heard what sounded like a crew of officers having a great time. "Send one of them out here!" I thought. Of course I didn't say anything.
Then, a strange man pulled off to the side of the road and got out of his car. I told the police receptionist someone was stopping for me. "Please put him on the phone," she said.
"It's the police," I said, handing him the phone.
He seemed confused but told them he could potentially give me a lift to Tekapo (wherever the hell that is, for all I know it's code for 'I'm going to kill this girl and hide her body'). He handed the phone back to me.
"Go with that man," the receptionist told me. "Oh, what's his license plate number?"
My new friend and I drove into town. He was en route from Christchurch where he had helped some friends move into their new home after losing their apartment in the earthquake. His wife was in Tekapo taking some time off work since her soon-to-open English school she had been working on had been destroyed by the earthquake as well.
Long story short, Emmy had a blown head gasket and was totaled. The one tow-truck driver in town was too drunk to give me a tow so I spent the night in a motel and in the morning awoke to Lake Tekapo, which was much more beautiful than I was expecting.
I boarded a bus to Queenstown after paying the mechanic to scrap Emmy. The bus ride was pretty, here are some more pictures:
Then, Ryan and I spent a couple nights in Queenstown and found another car for sale in the parking lot at our hostel. Although I've had very bad luck with cars thus far, I applied the "third time's a charm" mentality to the situation and we bought the car off the Brazilian cleaning lady from the hostel and her boyfriend after speaking Spanish to them and understanding nothing they said whatsoever. We decided it was time to hit the road, and headed down toward our WWOOF gay stay. Then the car overheated, so we pulled off to the side of the road and a kiwi stopped within two minutes to help us out. Apparently, in New Zealand, locals will help you with any car trouble whatsoever. We went into town and visited the local mechanic who told us the car appeared to be f***ed and that we should go knock on the door of whoever sold us this lump of metal and demand our money back.
So, we drove back to Queenstown and texted the Brazilian cleaning lady (whose name I still do not know) who told us she never had a problem with the car and had already spent the money but we could take the car to her mechanic and she would pay for the repairs. That was... six? days ago. We are STILL in Queenstown waiting for the part and slightly suspicious of this entire situation. More to come. Until then, here are some photos we took of beautiful Queenstown and its surroundings - a place you can easily kill a day or two in. Not ten.
