What's on the Table

 This tablecloth dates back to 2012 when we traveled to the South Island with three other caravans for a three month trip.  I took along some pre sewn  rail fence blocks made up of strips of New Zealand inspired fabrics alternating with pale grey and my Micron ink pen. 

Table cloth documenting our mammoth South Island trip

 Our old cat Muffy was 16 years old back then and we had always placed her in a cattery when we traveled.  But I worried that at her age she might die while we were away, so we took her on  her very first caravan trip, and what a long one it was.  Although she was very unsettled during the ferry trip, she settled down surprising well.  Within a week of being on the road she was reasonably comfortable with the big change in her life.

And here we all were, full of excitement,  traveling down on the Inter Islander Ferry with our friends. Sadly, Robin and Geoff C are no longer with us.

Robin, Jenny, Dot, Pauline, Eileen, Geoff T, Derek, Geoff C, way back in 2012

And what a time we had,  Each  night I would get my Micro pen out and write down, where we stayed, the places we explored, and special sights we had seen.  The writing has faded now over all these years, but the memories are still there.

Writing on the blocks each night

We drove down the east coast,  stopping at all sorts of interesting places and reached Invercargill.  This was quite memorable for our old cat Muffy, as she found some cat nip growing where we were parking up overnight and rolled on the warm concrete in ecstasy!

I think Muffy overdosed on cat nip

We traveled back through Central Otago, and over to the West Coast, back over to Picton, and finally taking the ferry back to Wellington. The scenery of the South Island of New Zealand can only be described in superlatives, such as majestic, stunning, and sensational. With vistas of mountains, rugged peaks, glaciers, rain forests, fiords, rivers, lakes, hot mineral springs, wild coastlines, streams and estuaries, and rolling farmland, each day brought us more wonderful views to marvel over. Each of these wonderful places was faithfully recorded on the rail fence blocks, and the memories will live on each time I use my  table cloth, completed in June 2012.  Eileen had donated me the colourful kiwi fabric which I used for the backing, border and binding.  I think her original intention was to use this fabric to make something for her grandchildren, which never happened.

Completed in June 2012

Our Toyota Land Cruiser towed the caravan 3973km around the South Island, and then we drove a staggering 3413km without the caravan on the back,  tiki touring around.  A grand total of 7386kms for the trip, and we used 1417 litres of diesel.  And all this travelling cost us $2292.17 and our fuel consumption averaged out at approx 18 litres per 100 kilometres.  Goodness knows what the cost of the fuel would be these days, 14 years later.