Back to Christchurch

Tuesday 14^th July 2015

 

Well, we have completed our first little trip. We had one night at Ashburton, four in Oamaru, one in Timaru, and now we are back in Christchurch. We are at the Addington Camping Ground this time as it is cheaper than Amber Park, and will be here about four nights. Then it will be time to take the van to Andrew’s and we will be off to Thailand for a month. At least it will be warm there, maybe too warm!

 

We knew winter was not the best time to start off, but it hasn’t been too bad, apart from the odd thing like frozen pipes this morning in Timaru so we couldn’t get water in or out, and we’ve had to scrape the frost off the car windscreens a couple of days. You would think we’d have learnt by now to put paper on the windscreen. Frosts of minus five or six degrees certainly make their presence felt.

 

It has been an interesting time of settling in and getting used to the spaces and where to keep things, and to establish routines. At least it is very warm and cosy and the bed is comfortable, so that is great. It has also been a great time of catching up with friends and relatives, all good fun.

 

Our biggest issue is with the internet, or lack thereof, and computer problems in general because we haven’t got our laptops properly set up yet. Our little mobile wifi device is not the answer to all our dreams as it gobbles up the data allocation so fast it is startling. We spent almost two hours over two visits with the friendly young guys at Dick Smith in Oamaru who helped us to reset some settings to save data use and sort out a couple of other problems, but even they couldn’t get the oldish laptop I am using to connect to wifi, which frustrated them and me! Hopefully we will get the little laptop sorted for use in Thailand, and get the rest of it sorted when we get back.

 

So all in all, a great experience so far, and looking forward to getting into it in earnest in the spring when we will have longer days and warmer weather.