Driving around new zealand
New Zealand is one of the most stunningly beautiful countries to visit in the world. It is full epic mountains, glaciers, coastlines, geothermal activity and more. If you elect to rent a car to drive around, which I highly recommend, you will find yourself pulling over all the time to take in the views.
While we were traveling around New Zealand, we went to cars the entire time. Because the island is split into two islands, we did have different cars between the North and South Island. In the North, we got a very yellow little car named Sunny and, in the South, we had Jill. Jill was for the most part an amazing little car but one day she said enough is enough with all our galivanting all over the country. And when did that happen you might ask. Well, I insisted we pull over for this epic view of a mountains with a river flowing near the road and through the valley.
jill's revenge
I jumped out to take some incredible photos. It was sort of chilly out, but the car was warm, so I left my coat inside. Sometimes when we had pull over, I was the only one to jump out and Thomas would keep the car running and just enjoy from the car but this time he wanted a peak too. He turned off Jill and got out for a look. My friend, Thomas and I got our views but noticed it was chilly and there was quite the activity of sandflies, so we headed back to the car to jet off. We got back into the car and realized that Jill was not wanting to restart. Our first thought was we are in the middle of nowhere! Praying we could get her to start and wondering if we weren’t able to, how were we going to get help to get her started again. Thomas had a cellphone with service in New Zealand and just our luck there was no service on this stop. We were thinking about how we would have to flag someone down, leave the car, get to service, call for help and we were beginning to panic about not having a car in the middle of nowhere.
sandfly attack
That feeling of dread and worry was swiftly overcome by a microscopic painful little needle bites all over our bodies. If you have not been bitten by sandfly, you should know it is not like being bit by a mosquito where you find out most of the time after the fact. You feel these little suckers as soon as they bite you. They are painful and then subsequently very itchy. We realized that the windows had been cracked prior to turning off the engine and sandflies were pouring in through the window feasting on us three sitting ducks. I was putting on clothes to give my skin some additional protection, and we were all screaming. Screaming for Jill to start and screaming at the attack of the sandflies.
the great sandfly massacre
After probably 20 minutes, but what felt like hours, Jill’s little engine started. We screamed in joy and started the journey back, but the pain wasn’t over because all the sandflies already in the vehicle were coming along for the ride. We tried to have them go out the windows, but most of them were not interested. While Thomas was driving, my friend and I smashed thousands of sandflies on the windows of the car. We all were still getting bit as we did this. Eventually we had reprieve. Poor Jill’s interior was completely covered in smashed and bloody bugs. After that Jill never had a problem starting up again for the rest of our couple week journey. Some call this event the great sandfly massacre, others Jill’s revenge- either way it was a story for the books.
