We had a very lazy morning, slept in, took our time making breakfast and our coffee to the sound of logging trucks hauling ass down the mountain roads. After getting our hiking clothes on we set out to hike Mt. Thomas the sign says it should take 3hours, but you can never tell, we usually are faster, but after the last hike we were on pace with the time they posted. We started the climb, and it was vertical through clear cut and thick bugs, ugh. Then we crossed a logging road and went up through perfect rows of a tree farm, the clear cut areas were the only views of the Canterberry plains below. We made the sumitt in 1 hour, and were fogged in. The clouds move quickly so we waited and watched as they swept over the saddle below us. The view was not great, but it was nice to be high and away from the sandfly's from hell. We made it back to our van around 2:30pm, now what do we do? It was too hot to sit in the van with the windows rolled up, and we could not sit out side as the sandfly's will feast on us all day. So we headed into Rangiora to use the internet and Skype our family and Beth in hopes to see the little man.
We found a hot spot out side the library to Skype, and were able to get most of the AK clan at Tom and Cathy's house, and see baby Ethan Elliott! What a cutie, we had a nice chat with everyone and entertained Alise who was quite interested in the computer and was such a cutie running around with her gold locks and big smile! What a great day, we got to talk to our family's, got some exercise, and now hungry and sleepy we headed back to the camp site.
Not 5min down the road from the library, our van slipped out of gear, hmm…and would not go into any gear. Thank goodness to our left was a grocery store parking lot. She had just enough in her make the turn into the lot, then she had no more. We pushed her into a spot, Paul tried to get her into gear, but she wanted no part of it. So it being close to 5pm we ran to find a mechanic, Paul ran across the street to a tire store, and I ran into the gas station that was in the parking lot we pulled into. We were both told to got to the same place across the street from us. Inside a nice mechanic Alec followed us to the she devil van to have a look. Of course first time he started her up she went right into gear, but he got out and told Paul he should drive around the lot to make sure all is ok. Once Paul got in she did not do anything just frozen in place. Now Alec, just as perplex as we were told us to follow him back to the shop and he will find someone to work on her as he is more of an auto electrician and his shop only works on manual's, so he went through the phone book and made some calls to the automatic mechanics. They were all closed, but he did know of a specialist that was just out of town that he could call, but it would have to be in the morning. We asked him if our van would be safe in the parking lot, and if we would get in trouble for camping there for the night. He said we would be fine, and infact we were in the car park for a bus stop so other cars will be parked there overnight as well. We thanked him and said we will see him in the morning.
We decided that it was not a good idea to cook our dinner in the parking lot of the supermarket, and we thought a beer would do us both some good. We went to the Blue Rooster for dinner, we arrived at 6pm but the cook would not be there for another 1/2 hour. No problem, since all we had to do was hang out in a parking lot, we opted for a beer and looked at the magazines that the restaurant provided. Lounging around the cook arrived and we ordered the burger and fry's! It was delicious, and we took our time enjoying it.
We made it back to our home for the night, brushed our teeth and went to the restroom at the gas station and called it a night.
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