45 hours, 970 kilometers, 3/4 tank of gas, 1 beer, it's raining and I'm wearing glasses

Above: Gilly Darby, 54, our host for the past week. A musician, she moved to New Zealand, fell in love with an organic garlic farmer and has never looked back. She still has a 22 year old son in the U.K. and visits every other year.

More posts to come soon, but as of me typing this, we just spent $274 NZ(about $200 US) on fixing our Mazda station wagon's clutch. We also burned two days in Te Anau, although they were rather spectacular including watching Jurassic Park on my computer while eating Boysenberry ice cream with chocolate chip cookies the first night, then taking a cruise to Milford Sound that ended with us swimming in our underwear in front of our tour bus, and finally camping in a church last night.

We thought the car would cost a lot more, but now we only have 45 hours to make it 1,000 kilometers. That's roughly 17 hours of straight driving, no stops. Wish us luck.