Well… today wasn’t on my radar. 🙃
I think pretty much from the time I got up until after noon, I just pounded away at my journal catch-up efforts.
So crazy to have fallen a week behind in seemingly the blink of an eye!
But I’ve clawed my way back (again 🙃) over the last few days. I’m all caught up, and I’m writing this entry day of.
🥳
But that’s not what my radar missed, no, it was this: After getting the writing portion (sans pictures) all caught up, and after availing myself of the Chinaman’s Bluff campsite toilet, I started driving toward civilization.
I didn’t really have any plan for what I was going to do next. I’d checked the weather and was thinking about trying to do the Earnslaw Burn hike again tomorrow, but I wasn’t sure.
After driving a little ways, crossing some fords, I pulled over in a large but dry wash area.
I honestly don’t even remember what I was planning on doing there. I didn’t have reception, so maybe I was just going to watch some of the videos I downloaded and contemplate what I wanted to do next.
I’m a little concerned about staying for a fourth night in the same campsite. Generally, freedom camping spots have restrictions of no more than two to four consecutive nights, and I’ve already done three.
But there are no signs indicating limits, so I don’t know if there are any at this particular location. I would guess so, but… 🤷
Anyway, shortly after pulling into the wash area, I saw a vehicle drive by dragging its rear bumper cover. 😅
So I whipped right around onto the road and sped after them, catching up to them in short order and laying on my horn to try to get their attention.
Unfortunately, their response was to drive away even faster, thinking I was angry with them for driving slowly. 😅
So I followed suit, driving even faster after them, rolling my window down and waving at them from behind while continuing to lay on my horn to get their attention.
Again they mistook my actions as telling them to pull over and get out of the way. 😆
Oh well, it had the same effect. They pulled over, and I rolled my window down and was able to tell them that they were dragging their rear bumper cover.
I hopped out and helped them put the bumper cover back on (at least mostly on) and then headed further down the road in front of them to find a place to turn around so I could go back the way I’d come (the dirt road was super narrow requiring a several-point turn without a wider spot).
After getting turned around, as I came upon their car again, I realized there was more that was hanging down from the front of the car, so I stopped them again.
What I found after I got out and walked over to inspect their car was that they had badly smashed the lower front end. 😬
The two men in the rental car were from Hong Kong, and this was the first time the driver had ever driven on a non-paved road. They hadn’t expected the fords, and the driver had gotten caught off guard by a dry ford, going down so quickly that the front end smashed hard against the far side of the ford, bashing in the bumper and radiator support and tearing off the rear bumper cover.
😬
I had him pop the hood, and unfortunately, I found that the radiator support had been smashed in far enough that the radiator fan assembly was squished up against the engine and couldn’t spin. 😕
So… no drivy. 😬
There was no phone reception where I stopped them, so I offered to drive them toward the campsite because I knew I could get at least one bar of service over there. The driver, Dan came with me, and his friend Vincent stayed with their rental car.
Unfortunately, even getting him connected to my Wi-Fi, he wasn’t able to get a call to go through, so we went back to his vehicle to let his friend know, and then we ended up driving a fair ways back toward civilization for him to be able to get reception.
I stopped after the first big ford to chat with a man I who was just about certain was a local (he was), thinking I’d ask to borrow his phone because I thought maybe Dan was having issues because his was a Hong Kong phone number, but the kiwi said that we wouldn’t be able to get reception until we passed a ranch that was a good ways away still.
So we kept on going down the road, stopping to let his friend know that we weren’t able to get connection there and we’re going to head closer to town. Again, he stayed with the car, and we headed out.
As we passed another ford, I noticed a young woman getting out of a local District Council truck, and I thought that she might have an idea as to whether or not there was a local tow truck available in a little village of Glenorchy nearby.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t from the area, so she didn’t have local knowledge, so we ended up just continuing our drive out to where Dan had reception.
Once in reception, Dan was finally able to get in touch with the Avis incident report service, and we were able to make the report. I had suggested to Dan that he put a pin on his map for where the vehicle was, which I thought was a smart idea, but the lady wasn’t able to use GPS coordinates in her system.
Fortunately, I was able to help her find Chinaman’s Bluff and give her the name of the road that goes out to it. With that, she was able to arrange for a tow truck to come out.
But there was a problem.
It was already about 4:00, the two gentlemen from Hong Kong had a flight leaving the Queenstown airport at 8:30, and it was an hour and a half to two-hour drive from Queenstown to where the car was, which would put them dangerously close to missing their flight. 😬
So I arranged with the lady on the phone to let the tow truck driver know that if he got to the car, and no one was there, to not worry about it, that we’d leave the key under the driver’s seat, which is what we ended up doing.
Unfortunately, there were no Ubers available to come out that far. 😕
Dan started looking to postpone his flight, which would have been super crappy, so I suggested to him that if he’d be willing to fill up my gas, I’d be willing to drive him all the way back to Queenstown.
He was super grateful, so we drove all the way back to where the car was on the side of the dirt road, stopping to avail ourselves of the super tall leafy toilets 🙃 because the security guard at… whatever that place was that was out in the middle of nowhere and didn’t have the look of anything that needed to be protected 😆 wouldn’t let Dan use one of the porta potties they had on site.
It might have been a filming location for a movie. The kiwi I’d talked to before had mentioned that we’d get reception right after leaving the forest and passing a place with tents.
This was where we got reception, and it was right after passing through a little bit of forest, but I didn’t see any tents anywhere, so… 🤷
Anyway, we drove back to the wrecked car, and they gathered all of their belongings while I made room in my van, one of them sitting in the reverse seat in back and the other lying on my bed. 🙃
From there, we chatted mostly about traveling, but also about political things, both with the United States and Iran, things going on in the United States, and also their feelings about Hong Kong returning to mainland China as well as their predictions about whether or not China would try to take over Taiwan.
Super cool guys. Great conversation.
We filled up with gas at a station close to the airport, and then I got them dropped off, presumably with plenty of time to fill out all the paperwork required after having an accident, and still make their flight okay.
They both thanked me over and over, and I shook their hands and bid them good journey.
Since I was all the way back in Queenstown, I figured it was a good time to stop off at the grocery store and stock up, so I headed over to the Pak ‘n Save, bought a whole boatload of groceries (including ice cream 🙃), packed it into my van.
The next stop was to an outdoor bottle fill-up fountain at a nearby bus stop where I was able to top off all my water bottles, as well as rinse out and convert two bottles that had chemicals in them (one of them soap, and the other an antibacterial spray) into drinking water bottles. 🎉
By that point, it was already pretty late in the day, and I figured that since I was already in Queenstown, though it was most likely a waste of my time, I figured I might as well check the local freedom camping spots to see if there were any available slots.
The first one I looked at had apparently been closed due to construction. It was actually right next to the bus station where I had just filled up my water bottles.
The second one was just a few blocks away, but when I drove over there, I found it completely full. That’s when I noticed that CamperMate had links to each location’s availability in the Queenstown area, so I found a site that supposedly still had 10 available slots, and headed that direction.
I wasn’t holding my breath that it would actually have any vacancies, so when I got there and found that every single slot was full, despite what the online availability counter was saying, I wasn’t surprised.
With every slot full, I drove to the end of the line and parked in a different stall to hop back on my phone and figure out where I was going to go next.
After sitting there for maybe 10 minutes, I had somebody walk up to my window and ask if I was wanting to stay the night there. I answered in the affirmative, and he let me know that he had just barely left, leaving one stall open!
I thanked him and drove quickly over, finding the spot still open, and I pulled in for the night, super grateful.
After pulling into the parking spot, I walked back to try and find him to thank him more properly, but he was gone.
So grateful. 🙏
I realized that the way that people knew if sites had available parking slots or not was via a QR code reservation system. So I walked over to the sign at the entrance to the parking lot, scanned the QR code, and filled out the little survey/reservation.
Done. 🙏
I do have to leave the parking lot by 8:00 a.m., but that won’t be a big deal at all, assuming I don’t stay up crazy late tonight. 😅
I spent the next good long time sitting in the driver’s seat going through all of the journal entries I’d written and adding pictures to them; and as you can see, I got them all posted. 😁
And now I’ve written this entry, too, so we’re golden!
🥳
It’s past midnight (12:30), and I still want to vege, because I haven’t done anything to wind down. 🙃
But it’s late, and I need to get up early.
To vege or not to vege…
🙃
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 