Easter/ANZAC - Day 1: Christchurch - Havelock

Owen and I decided to take the 3 days off between Easter and ANZAC day to give us 10 days of holidays, we put the plan in place to try and head out round the heads of the sounds and over to Nelson area. Bruce called the night before leaving and asked if there was a spare place for him aboard for the 10 days as his plans had fallen through with the impending weather.

The road outside Kaikoura
Owen picked me up from work at 4.30pm, we headed back home to pick Bruce up and get on our way. The traffic was already horrendous, Cyclone Ida was already starting to wreak havoc. The drive up to Havelock normally takes 4 hours but you always expect a little extra time with public holidays. But tonight we didn’t pull into the car park till somewhere between 10.30pm and 11pm! The roads where flooded, there was land slips on the road and at one stage there was a raging river that had decided to become part of the road, we even had a police escort at one stage, they were taking groups through one of the worst slips. It was definitely and interesting drive. Bruce and I spent the drive flood spotting to try and help Owen. However there wasn’t once during the drive up that we spotted an idiot driver, something that normally happens regularly during the trip, so well done NZ drivers for listening to all the advertising over the years and “Driving to the Conditions!” We later found out the Kaikoura – Ward road got closed shortly after we passed through and people where sleeping in the car the night in the area before turning back, so we were lucky to get here at all! 

The plan had originally been to get to the boat and spotlight our way out to the first mooring, but I didn’t think it was a particularly great plan considering the weather. Plus by the time we got to the boat we still had to unload, stow everything away and fill the water and diesel tank. We decided that everyone was a little tired for all that carry on after the mammoth drive so we unpacked half the car chucked a few bits away and hit the hay ready to head out on high tide in the morning!
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