Road to the Russian - Day 1

Alright, Hannah here, taking you back in time for the journey down to the top of the South Island where the Lermontov lays....

We first heard about this trip nearly a year ago through the Auckland Uni Underwater Club. Ali, a leader in the club had managed to score an amazing deal consisting of 4 days of diving for less than the price of two. Although it would be an expensive and intensive trip, we decided that we would never get another opportunity like this ever again and set out to make it happen. We scrimped and saved as much as we could, and when Sonny's mom won the neighborhood "lottery" in Singapore and insisted that he take some of the winnings for a present, we knew it was actually going to happen. Unfortunately, we were so busy the few weeks before the trip that even though we spent months planning the trip it sorta went off all pell mell. We forgot things like the Lonely Planet guide which made our lives a bit more difficult as you will see later. However, we survived and it was a good trip.

The day we had chosen to set out was a Saturday. I had visions of leaving at 9 am in the morning and a slow meander down toward Wellington, where we were meeting up with a diving friend at 10 am the next morning. We needed to switch the 10 L tanks Ali had loaned us while she is in Mexico with his 12 L tanks, and as Wellington is an 8 hour drive, the plan was to cover 6 or 7 hours on Saturday then drive into town on Sunday. I say was because we didn't actually make it out of Auckland until 3 pm. There goes that plan.

Off we go...better late than never

So instead of a slow meander, it was a loud music- and caffeine- fueled sprint. We still had fun though, and I got a good bit of knitting done.

7 hours in a car gets you lots o socks

We took SH 3 and 4 down instead of SH 1 because it is a shorter distance, but the roads were a bit more curvy and in the end it might have taken longer. We did get to pass by some familiar sights though...

Remember that Mom?

We ended up finally passing out in a campground on the beach at around midnight. We had a hard time finding a place to sleep and had traveled down a few side roads with no luck. We saw a sign for "something" Beach and decided to check it out. When we realized it ended with a paying campground, we were so tired that we decided to just pay and pass out. However, we had to wake up at 6 am in order to remain on schedule, and as we were getting ready to leave, we still couldn't find the person to pay. So, we dined-n-dashed, we slept-n-skedaddled, we camped-n-creeped.