(Almost) running on fumes

50 litres. According to the "internetz", that is the fuel tank capacity for a B15 Nissan Sunny, which is what Betsy was (see Holly's previous post).  That would have been helpful information to have during our drive from Fox Glacier to Greymouth, during which I thought I might, for the second time in my life, run out of petrol while driving. (By the way, "petrol" is non-American English for "gas" and since the events of this post all occurred in New Zealand, this post will use the word "petrol" and not "gas"). 


So after the adventures of Fox Glacier, we left with a quarter tank of petrol, thinking that we'd find a petrol station with slightly cheaper petrol (yes, Keemin rebelled at paying 10 cents more than the national average ($2.21 vs. $2.11) for a litre of petrol). About 30 minutes later, we rolled into Franz Josef, the next significant town north of Fox Glacier. We saw one petrol station that looked closed. Of course, as we drove past it Holly confirmed it was in fact open, but I figured we'd just get gas in the next town. How far could it be?


I'll cut the story short, but let's just say the next 2 hours were a bit of a nail-biter. The low fuel warning light came on. None of the small villages or settlements we passed through had a petrol station. When we finally came to a slightly larger one that did have a petrol station, we were pretty intent (a euphemism for "desperate") on getting petrol there. But there was a small sign plastered on the single gas pump at the station, cheerfully stating that due to groundwater contamination of their underground fuel tank, they were not dispensing any petrol. *gulp*


At this point, we had about 40km to go before we got to Hokitika, a small town where we had planned to have dinner. The warning light had been on for quite a while by this time (maybe 100km) and we weren't quite sure if we'd make it. We didn't have a cellphone, and the terrain was hilly and the area was pretty sparsely populated. Running out of petrol would be a very bad idea. But we didn't have much choice other than proceeding onwards, stepping on the accelerator as lightly as possible.


Thankfully we made it. As we pulled into Hokitika, Betsy was driving a little strangely, like she wasn't getting enough petrol in (we'd later realize this was actually unrelated to the petrol tank situation and really a transmission problem). But we nudged her into the petrol station and breathed sighs of relief.

[Photo of the fuel gauge when we pulled into the Hokitika petrol station.]

[41.02 litres and $88.97 later... (as an added bonus, the petrol was five cents cheaper than in Fox Glacier!)]

We ended the day's adventures with a nice dinner at Cafe de Paris in Hokitika to celebrate. Unfortunately, Betsy never was the same after this adventure, and we had to trade her in the next day for Mr. Blue.

The moral of the story, of course, is that sometimes saving ten cents per litre isn't worth losing your peace of mind, and that when you're on the West Coast of New Zealand (or anywhere else that's not at least suburban), don't count on finding a working petrol station when you need one. We never let our fuel tank drop below a quarter for the rest of our trip, no matter what the price of petrol was. :)