From our beautiful spot by the sea we could see all around us - and watched the sun rise first thing across the harbour. I was busy making a cup of tea when I got a bit of a scare. A police car pulled up along side us, stopped and drove off.
I made Paul pack the bed up, and I got dressed in a scramble thinking we were about to get moved on or fined for Freedom camping somewhere we shouldn't have. Then there was a knock on the front cab window. I opened one of the back windows and called out to be greeted by and Emergency Civil Response officer.
He was very apologetic for disturbing us, and said:
" Do you know there is going to be a tsunami?"
Our response I cannot publish as it involved quite a few bad words. He reassured us after we had apologised, and told us that the wave would be no greater than 20cm but that we should not take our breakfast down to the waters edge or go fishing off the rocks, he then bid us a good day.
Well, we were a little shaken and of course had not heard the news - then we checked our phones - yep - everyone back home was panicking - oops. Sorry.
We had our breakfast in the van then drove into Wellington where we spent the rest of the day, visiting the Te Anau museum and walking along the promenade.
We didn't see the tsunami and can only imagine that because it was so windy it came and went without our detection. However, we did listen to the radio that evening, and every day after, as in some parts of New Zealand many people had been evacuated, and waves were reported that had been one metre high, plus the sea was behaving very erratically with freak waves being caused by aftershocks.
Te Anau Museum, Wellington
Colossal Squid at Te Anau Museum
Walking around Wellington
From Wellington we spent the night at a town on the West coast, so as to avoid any more scarry moments with tsunamis and stayed at a place called Paekakariki.
Parking on the sea front and freedom camping we had a wonderful view of the sunset.
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