Van Tour – The Maiden Voyage – Day 4 – Forests, Lakes and wind, wind, wind
5 May 2018, Tekapo NZMCA Park to Ohau B NZMCA Park
After another relaxed start to the day I emerged from the van just after 12. I wandered the short distance to the lake edge, looking across at Tekapo Township with snowcapped mountains behind and then down the late towards the snow capped mountains.
You may have noticed a lot of snow capped mountains being mentioned, this is because it is unusual to have so much snow on the mountains this early in the year (remembering for you northern hemisphereites that we are in Autumn at the moment), and because I like them.
I then walked the trail beside the lake and then into the forest, enjoying the gentle walk. An hour later I was back at the van and looking forward to a shower – though cold unfortunately. Earlier in the morning I tried out the microwave for the first time and was not happy. The inverter struggled to provide power and I had to reduce to low power to have it work continuously. I also switched on the hot water heater and almost instantly had low voltage alarms sounding, and more concerningly a smell of burning rubber. I had a look in the back at the van at my wiring but could not see any melted wires. My 0 gauge cable (the biggest you can get) from the battery to cutoff solenoid, 200amp fuse were warm, the solenoid was warm and the fuse showed some signs of heat. This was surprising as I had been watching the power draw and it was a max of 90 amps so I should not have been having this much heat in the cables. The burnt smell was coming from the inverter as opposed to any of the other wiring. Something to investigate on my return.
As I still do not have a door for my shower it was rather restricted and hand held. I was a bit puzzled at the lack of water until I realised the shower cutoff had engaged. Once released there was a good pressure flow and it was much warmer than I expected. Maybe the water heater had warmed a little bit of the water. All these little issues are exactly why I decided to do this test trip before finishing everything.
I then headed to Tekapo to play tourist to look at the scenic Church of the Good Shepard and the Sheep Dog Statue. Then I had a pie for lunch, sitting looking out at the lake. Pies were one of the things I really missed when I was overseas.
Next I headed towards Twizel. It was really windy and there were a few big gusts that really rocked the van around. At one point going over a high bridge I saw a large motorhome coming towards me get struck by a very strong gust. I could almost see the whites of the drivers eyes and their look of panic as they tried to keep on their side of the road. Seconds later I came to the same point and realised why they reacted as they did as I started veering towards the oncoming traffic before getting control back. I stopped at the edge of Lake Pukaki for the views but the mountains were in cloud so no sighting of Mt Cook. The lake was really rough and no mirror perfect photo like I have gotten every other time I had stopped there.
In Twizel I got my first Caffeine fix in two days. As it was late afternoon I checked out the NZMCA travel application for a place to stay. There was free camping at Lake Ruataniwha, 5km away. On arrival there were some young tourists in tiny vans playing around, and it was really windy so I decided not to stay there. The next closest site was at Ohau B which Meridian Energy has kindly let NZMCA members stay for free. I was surprised that there was no lock on the gate but I went through and found a park some distance from the other vans, of which there were only 4. The site is right by the water and opposite the Salmon Farm so interesting to watch.
I stayed in the front of the van alternating between reading and watching the Salmon Farm until it got dark then into the back and into bed. The wind was increasing and the van was rocking around, lulling me to sleep.
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