seriously. the next sandfly i see is dead meat. i know i keep complaining, but when you can't sleep b/c your feet itch so bad you are crying, you begin to get a little cranky. and a little worried when your toes are double in size, extremely red and shiny. thank goodness we were on our way to christchurch (aka civilization) and i could find a pharmacist to help before my toe falls off!
after a quick shower and breakfast at our hostel, made our way to the garage to pick up the rest of our belongings that we had left in the car, but the mechanic told us his wife was actually going to be coming down to the bus stop to deliver our things there, so made our way towards the ever-popular I Site to wait for her. we waited for a while and began to worry when she didn't show up as we were so not about to miss the bus (and our only way out of middle-of-nowhere doom) again. but alas, she did arrive with minutes to spare. only thing is she forgot our food that was in the car and only grabbed the sleeping bags. at first i was like oh well, lost a brand new box of cheerios and peanut butter and some other random stuff, but then later realized my special souvenir food was also in that bag! so so sad. lost my plum spread and my onion marmalade. and the accident claims another victim..
having had our anxiety relaxed after we finally received our sleeping bags, it was only to build again when the bus that was supposed to arrive at 0845 still wasn't there. and i only wish i could have seen the look on our faces when our bus did actually pull up. it was a 10 seater mini van. grrrrrreat. we were going to be stuck in that for over 4 hrs. i really wish we still had our car. anyway, the ride was uneventful thankfully. made a couple pit stops and also picked up a few stragglers along the way. unfortunately however the driver kept the air conditioning on full blast the entire time, and we were nearly frozen solid when we eventually arrived in christchurch. to quote theresa, who put it quite aptly, "what did he think we were? heads of lettuce?!" in all honestly, i had a difficult time walking because my muscles were in a state of clonus from shivering so much. and of course it was misting rain. no matter what steph says, i'm convinced the sun doesn't shine on the east coast.
checked into our hostel (vagabond backpackers), then made our way back into town to find some food, a pharmacy (thank the lord!) and to begin to pick away at the mountain of tasks we needed to complete thanks the the accident. we were successful in the first two, but began to hit a roadblock when it came to dealing with car issues. our first stop was to state insurance, who despite being incredibly friendly, was not able to help us much as they were just a sales office and didn't deal with claims. however, they were able to get us farther than we were on our own, so at least we got some more information out of it, if not actual assistance. turns out that yes, we have to deal with the rental insurance directly (state won't help) and that we can't process any claims until the couple returns from their vacation and fills out the paperwork. nice.
so we made our way to the wendekrisen rental company, thinking we would get further in person than on a phone. we tried to be pleasant but firm in our demands. spent about 3 hrs there waiting for the girl to have time between customers to help us, which in the end really got us nowhere. we were able to fill our our portion of the paperwork, and the girl was as helpful as she could be. but all she could really do was reiterate the fact that we had to wait until the couple returned their vehicle to file the claim. and tell us we would likely only get the blue book value (prob around $300) for the car despite having put $1000 into it the day before for the inspection. and despite having a buyer who already gave us $500. but the real kicker and final slap in the face was that wendekrisen said we would be responsible for the tow b/c we requested it. which is total BS. we never requested it - the police is the one who called for the tow b/c he said it was illegal to leave it there. WTF.
back into town (yet another bus ticket..just put it on the tab of unanticipated expenses), met up with steph's friend giselle for dinner, then theresa and i headed back to our hostel while steph went to meet up with friends. defrosted with a cup of tea and desperate housewives (funny, i've never even watched that show at home). and we talked about our options, the only logical one being that if we wanted to salvage any of our time in the north island, we should rent a car.
so that's what we did. next morning began our plethora of phone calls, which included getting prices for rentals, canceling our old bookings in the north island and making new ones to fit our new time table, calling home to tell the parents, calling the mechanic in reefton to sort out the payment issue (turns out he'll keep the car as long as we need him to if we send him the title with no dates on it - so it will still be in steph's name so she can get the accident claim money), and finally calling simon the insurance man for wendekrisen, who fortunately at least appears to be on our side and understanding of our plight.
found a car for $40/day from scottie's, not too shabby. it's actually a great deal since we'd be spending triple that if we had to pay for buses everywhere. and the amount of time we'll save if we manage our own transport..that is more precious than anything at this point. picked up the rental, then back to the hostel to pack up and ship out. made a stop in kaikoura (bought another wooly shirt) so steph could use the fax/internet for free at dusky lodge. left some souvenirs there so we wouldn't have to carry them all around the north island, including my 2 bottles of wine and our paintings. then made our way to picton - finally. checked into our hostel (the atlantis), made dinner and walked around so we could see at least a bit of the cute nautically themed town. and had the best ice cream bars ever! they so hit the spot after our day of stress. finally to bed, we have quite a day a head.
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