Out of Gas????

As we are about to depart back from Milford Sound we realize that we need to fill up as we have about a quarter tank left and the drive was probably at least 2.5 hours up and down mountains. (obviously not enough to get home) What we soon learned was that the only gas station in Milford Sound wasn't manned and required a New Zealand EFTPOS. Since we didn't have one of those bank cards, our only alternative was making a slight detour to a place called Gunn's Camp where there was apparently emergency gas.

Therefore as we make our way down, the turn off we were suppose to take ended up to be a dirt road or as the local's say "unsealed". As you can imagine, we began to question if this was first, "is this the right way" and two, "will there be gas?" Seeing how the gas was also decipating, our options were running slim. Oh yeah, did I mention the sun had already set?

About 20 km into this dirt road we end up seeing what I believed to be Gunn's Camp. And campsite it was. This place consisted of cabins built in the 1930's and have not changed since. There were probably 8 in total with a VERY small store and yes folks, a gas pump. Not your everyday gas pump though. This was a manual gas pump that needed to be hand pumped to be dispensed. Another slight problem we ran into was that we didn't have normal gas but needed diesel. Luckily for us these people did in fact have a 20L container of Diesel which he offered to give us 10 of.

What was even more interesting was not only was this place surrounded my mountains, it had no electricity, no lights, no nothing. Rustic was the best word I could come up with. We did visit one of these cabins to have a look and found out that its heating system consists of a coal oven which also works as your kitchen stove. (see photo on your right) You would be surprised at the amount of heat that could actually come out of that.

Because of the uniqueness of this place, we decided to stay the night to truly experience this rustic lifestyle. It was amazing. The place was truly a nature lovers dream. In the morning we then went for a tramp (NZ word for hike) to one of the local peaks to see what the area looked like from the top (as seen below).


What started out as a possible obstacle turned into a spectacular experience.

- the lone asian