Missing a turn

The ATR72 flight landed in Nelson around 1045, about 10 mins ahead of schedule.  I had a rental car booked with Pegasus an off-site car rental company.  Other operators had wanted about NZD600 for five days whereas this company was the only one offering non-inflated prices for the post New Year holiday period at around NZD215.

I was picked up from the airport by Sarah, the owner-operator, in my allocated vehicle.  She only has 25 vehicles and doesn’t have a dedicated van.  She was super-friendly and it really showed that she values the importance of her customers.

I drove off about 1115 for Takaka in Golden Bay.  Remembering that the drive was quite straight forward, I didn’t have my Google Maps on and missed the one key turn outside of Richmond, a pseudo-suburb of Nelson.

The drive seemed windier than I remembered and I must have gone for about 30 mins on the road to Westport before realising the mistake.  I had to rectify the mistake via another windy road to join up with the correct route near Motueka.

Including two rest breaks for my packed lunch, once shortly after departing off the correct route and a second on the windy stretch that took me back on to the correct route, the 3h.  That was about 1h20 more than the 1h45 that was estimated by Google Maps.  The time included a 15 min wait for a one-way section controlled by a traffic light as part of the highway had been washed out by a storm two years ago and is still being fixed up.

Arriving at my accommodation, Autumn Farm, around 1400, I was quite worn.  The wrong part of the route had been windy and the second part on the correct route was tortuous.  That means, most of the journey involved high concentration.  Add to that, some torrential rain en route.

The weather was still patchy.  I snuck out for a pie as a light dinner and got some fruit and yoghurt for the next few days’ breakfast.