Roadtrip day 8

(Disclaimer: ok, just to let everyone know, I am safely back safe and sound in Kaikoura. So don’t freak out too much about this day lol)

We started our long drive back up the East Coast today. We’ve gotten lazier and lazer at getting up early to either watch the sunrise or go on a hike early in the morning before we head out. Anela wanted to get up at 5:00am to watch the sunrise! 5:00am! Haha, yeah right. (sorry Anela, too early for me). Besides it was raining really hard in the morning, so we waited almost 5 hours for it to pass (and for us to wake up) before we went to go see a waterfall. Then we headed out to Dunedin.

We were freezing cold the whole time we were in Dunedin – that seemed to be a theme during the whole trip. But with the cold and all, we stopped to see the Cadbury Chocolate Factory. Nissi and I snuck into the shop, though we were really supposed to pay for a tour to be able to access the store – oops, whatever. We got chocolate for really cheap there. :) yummm.

Anyway, driving out of Dunedin, we saw these 2 guys hitchhiking to Christchurch. When we saw them, we slowed down, almost picked them up, then decided that we shouldn’t and sped off again – they were so bummed they almost got a ride lol. Then we talked about it, and decided we should be Good Samaritans and we should turn around and pick them up. We were going to Christchurch too after all. So we clean up the van, hide valuables and all, then turn around and grab them. They were so stoked. They were 2 guys, Calum (18) and Ben (19), and they had never hitchhiked before. They were just going up to their friend’s house for the weekend, and needed a ride.

I know what you’re thinking, that we weren’t being smart at all by picking up random guys. But it felt like the right thing to do. And they were really cool guys. Made the whole trip more fun, learning NZ saying and slang, talking about the north and south island, and just hanging out. Oh, and they were agnostic, so we got to talk with them about Christ. And Calum was asking a bunch of hard questions that Christians commonly struggle with, like what about the scientific evidence for evolution, why is there evil in the world, why do innocent people die, etc. I had never witnessed like that to a person before, so it was really cool. I don’t really know if I got through to him or not, but I’m praying I did.

We got all the way up to Christchurch, dropped them off, and they gave us a place to park our van for the night, which was really nice. That whole experience made that day pretty eventful.

Leah