Today was another cloudy day and we had seen on the news that everywhere on both islands was supposed to be super nice for the next week except where we were heading so we decided it was the perfect time to head west again and do the Heaphy Tramp. We packed up, ate some breakfast, listened to David for another 2 hours while trying to get ready to go, then finally headed out. One of us would just walk out on him and take something to the van or take the trash and return to find David still just talking away. David and his partner Dawn gave us their number and address and invited us to stay with them when we are on the north island by Taupo, very nice gesture but I think both of us might go crazy.
As we headed west back up Lewis pass the clouds slowly cleared the farther west we drove and just about at the pass there was not a cloud in the sky, it was beautiful. We decided to do a walk right at the top of the pass called "the tops". We went for about half an hour through bush making our way up and got to a ridge that was bare and offered amazing views of the valley and surrounding mountains. The trail went quickly back into bush and a forest of really large trees. This forest got really difficult to navigate, there was a bunch of fallen trees (either wind or snow kills) and we had a lot of trouble just finding the trail along with our way around/over/under/through all of the felled trees. After wondering around through felled trees and finding then loosing the trail over and over again for another 45 minutes we decided to give up on this trail and head back to the car since we still had a good amount of driving to complete to make it to Nelson.
At the van we got some lunch stuff out for easy access, jumped in, turned the key and…. nothing. We got the battery out and hooked up the cables, still very little juice and not enough to turn it over. A NZ guy who was gearing up with full on mountaineering gear, he was going to try and summit a 2200 meter mountain down the pass, stopped and tried to give us a jump which also did not work. We decided we needed to take out the old battery and put in the new, but with no tools and both of us unable to find our leather man's this was not an option. I played around with the leads again really yanking on them and twisting, they turned a little so I went and tried to start her up and like magic we were on the road again. Damn leads we just tightened them a month ago.
Got into Nelson around 6pm, went straight to the Mitre 10 store and bought some tools so we could at least try and do something if we ever have problems again. We then returned to Mc Kee campsite on the Tasman Bay and began our inside and out search for the leather man's that it turns out I had hidden a little too well before our Klondike walk the other day. Feeling relieved we ate some dinner, read a little and went to bed.
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