SV Thyme: A Tale Of Survival

Our last weekend in NZ was spent with friends at Lake Rotoroa. Brad's grandmother has a gorgeous, comfy bach in one of the most beautiful locations in the Nelson lakes district.

Night One:

After a few drinks a mid night walk sounded like a good idea, resulting in Megan falling into the bushes, and Jane breaking her camera after falling into a puddle and finding it difficult to get up unassisted. Maybe not such a good idea after all.....

While we were soundly sleeping Brad and Deano were pulling wheelies in the off-roader on the grass of the guest house down the road. Word is that Russell Crowe stayed in this guest house. In the morning I found big tracks across the grass right next to the "No Parking on the Grass" sign. Ooops.

The other mystery of the evening was how the white CO2 powder came to be all over the lounge and kitchen? A clue as to the source was the empty fire extinguisher..
Day 2:
The morning started out with adventure - carving up the garden in the off-roader. Things got a little bit out of hand when Brad rolled the buggy with Amanda in the passenger seat. They then got totally out of hand when Simon crashed the buggy airborne into the side of a tree. That was the end of buggying for this trip!

Lets go boating was the cry. Volunteers were everywhere. "I will make the lunch", "I will pack the esky" that would be Amanda, so we embarked into the rain with everything but a map.

We had reason to believe a hut existed at the other end of the lake so off we went flat out not a care in the world. No one gave fuel a second thought.

After trawling the lake shore we came across a wharf.

After reading the sign "Hut that way, 20 min's no bridge" we set out taking turns carrying the chilly bin confident we could tackle any river crossing.

Retrospectively we should perhaps have taken more notice of the signs.

Finally we came to the river. The water was just above freezing and the current swift. A lot of thought was required over a few beers as to the best approach. The end result was obvious. Send the two youngest and see how they fared before committing ourselves.

No way are we doing that was our next thought. Megan had her shoes swept away, almost following them herself. They arrived back on our shore after hurling abuse from the far bank, cold and unhappy. A whip around was done to provide Megan with warm, dry clothes, a picture was taken and we headed back. By the way that is a camera under my jacket.

The trip back to the boat was a little easier as the load was changing from full bottles to empty ones.
We all piled into the boat and started home. To break the trip up Brad crimped the fuel hose to pretend we were out of fuel for a laugh about 10 min's before we actually ran out of Fuel 3/4 of the way back. That provided a good opportunity for lunch and a run for the wee outboard.