Neil’s on Wheels

Week 2 of our big 11-week motorhome adventure… and things got a little dramatic.
Just 10 minutes out of Ashburton on SH1 — BANG!
A huge explosion followed by the most horrifying metallic screeching noise. The motorhome started swerving all over the road. I yelped and watched as my amazing husband wrestled with the steering wheel, doing everything he could to bring the out-of-control vehicle to a stop.
Eventually he managed to pull us over on the side of busy SH1.
I looked at him and said one word: “Tyre?”
The smell of burning rubber was overwhelming.
After sitting there in stunned silence for a few seconds, we both climbed out to inspect the damage… and it wasn’t pretty.
The tyre was completely ripped to shreds.
The plastic moulding over the wheel had been torn off entirely.
Looking back down the road — even in the fading twilight — we could see a trail of debris marking exactly where we’d come from.
I carefully retraced our steps and gathered up whatever pieces I could find. To my surprise, one of the items in the debris field was one of our click-clack containers from inside the motorhome! Turns out the blowout had also ripped a hole through the bottom of one of the cupboards.
With nothing else we could really do… I cooked dinner (blue cod from sister Carol!)
It felt incredibly strange doing something so ordinary while sitting in a damaged motorhome on the side of the highway, not quite sure how we were going to get out of the pickle we’d found ourselves in.
Neil called the AA and they came out, but unfortunately they couldn’t help us on the spot. So we ended up spending the night right there on the roadside, waiting for Bridgestone to come in the morning.
Despite the odd angle of the motorhome and the constant rumble of big trucks flying past, we actually slept surprisingly well.
This morning the tyre situation was sorted, and we’re now back on the road again — heading to Queenstown for a brand-new tyre before continuing on to Garston, where we’ll be volunteering on a hops farm for the next two weeks.
https://www.garstonhops.co.nz/

Adventure, right? 🚐Read more