his German girlfriend had a lovely little baby and had been living in the area for the past year. Apparently he quite often gave campsite waifs and strays a lift back once the bar had closed!!!

We were in for a quite a shock when we left the bar, it was freezing! We couldn’t thank Carlos enough but said our goodbyes, then invited Lois and Beth in for a nightcap! Rob had decided that the only thing left to do seeing as it was so close was to get the famous Louis XIV brandy out!

We woke the next morning to find that the inside of Bongo was frozen! The sun hadn’t made it over the hill yet and when we looked outside we found it was slightly more cloudy than it had been the day before! It was hard work getting out of bed, it was so very cold and it was so very lovely and warm under

the covers but the toilet was calling so we both had to quite literally drag ourselves out of bed and wrap up in all available coats, hats and gloves before heading off to the loo!

Lois and Beth wanted to head off early as they were driving down to Queenstown so we said our goodbyes and wished them good luck for the rest of their travels. Lois was going on a four month sailing trip to Tonga and Beth was eventually heading back up to the Bay of Islands. After waving them off it was breakfast time again, and yet again I was on pancake duty!

After breakfast and generally pottering around we packed everything up as we were going to be heading off today. Neither of us were sure if we wanted to go but it was just so cold at night that we didn’t think we wanted another freezing night in