Day 6 - Cromwell to Naseby

With the exertions of yesterday, we both had a good night's sleep but woke to only 8C in the Motor Home and our batteries complaining of low voltage. Since the diesel heater uses power to get started and run the fan, we stayed in bed until well after 8am. After a hearty breakfast and coffee to warm up we managed to complete the morning tasks (running the diesel heater, putting the bed up and skipping showers) we got through until the sun began some charging. Clearly our batteries are not up to multiple days at this latitude! We may have to invest in a generator.

Having decided to change our itinerary due to bad weather in Fiordland, we packed up and headed for Naseby where we will spend the next two nights on a powered site at their Motor Camp. We can also catch up on the washing and generally regroup.

We bid farewell to Eric and Yvonne and headed down the Clutha for Naseby while they packed up and will move on to Wanaka and the West Coast.

Miriam managed to see the cycle trail that I traversed yesterday from the various viewing points along the highway before checking out the Clyde Dam.

From Clyde we drove along the Otago Rail Trail cycle route which I did with Steve and Mary-Anne about 5 years ago. On that trip Miriam drove the car and the three of us cycled but we met up at various points where the cycle trail and the road. We stopped at the Chatto Creek pub for lunch which is what we did on the first day of the cycle trip! We both had a luscious Fish Burger.

Next stop was St Bathans which is a famous gold mining town where they sluiced for gold. They managed to turn a small hill into a small lake which is now used for swimming and admiring the strange landscape. We met a very friendly local (Mandy, one of 6 permanent inhabitants) who gave us a full run-down on the history of the area.

We are now plugged in at the Naseby Motor Camp and will do some exploring around here tomorrow.