V HOT We got up at 6:00, and showered, did a duty* and had breakfast. Got on the bus down to the coast at 8:00 and boarded the boat “Seafari”** at 9:00. The trip over¹ took about 1 hour and the boat beached is as there is no jetty. We booked into the yh and as it was raining and Linda was a bit sick, we rested for a couple of hours. Then we went for a swim and I paid $15 to hire a jet bike for 1/4 of an hour. Great fun. Went for a walk up to the Wreck Bar and had a drink then watched the sun set over Keppel Bay.
*In those days, one of the conditions of staying in a Youth Hostel was that you had to do a housework duty each day.
**A shuttle boat taking guests out to Keppel Island.
¹In the 1980s, Great Keppel Island was the quintessential young people’s party island. The resort’s tagline was “Keppel Island: it’s a great place to get wrecked.” On the wall in her flat at 8a Cotterill Street in Christchurch, Linda had a poster depicting four young people stacked up on a white sand beach. The poster’s title was Keppel Sandwich. As we lay in her bed, through the cold, dark months of a South Island winter, planning our trip, Keppel Island had always been our first destination…
CurseOfTheTraveller 