Sharne's Birthday weekend

The weekend of Sharne's birthday was nice well-needed relaxing break in Puli.
Gemma and Sharne drove their scooters into my garage and then took Pascal's van out for a spin. It hadnt been driven in a while so we were a bit unsure as to whether it would start: it did... phew
Jeff, Michelle and me jumped in Sam's car (well Tai's car) and led the way to Puli to find a nice camp ground to stay on.
Sam had said it was "only an hours journey" and therefore jinxed the whole trip.
The first town we got to we circled a couple of times to find road to Puli and a coffee shop... for coffee.
The second larger town we seemed to pass the same roundabout 3 times and when we finally did find the road to Puli, I recognised the Chinese sign for coffee to our right and we pulled in for a drink.
Sharne pulled up beside us and there was a bang and a hiss. hmmm. The van was smoking and a pool of liquid was gathering underneath it: not petrol thankfully... but this didn't look good.
The owner of the coffee shop came out and called a mechanic. He arrived within 15 minutes and while we drank coffee and tea he diagnose a broken fan belt... but nothing he couldn't fix in an hour.\
We transfered the tents to Sam's car and scouted ahead to find a campsite.
It was after 4 by the time we reached Puli... I had a vision of another 2 hours spent driving in circles... so I persuaded everyone to head to hte campsite we knew at Sun Moon Lake.
The van was already on the move again when we got there. We spent far too long trying to put up a tent with the wrong poles. The plan was for a BBQ for dinner and as soon as the van arrived I took to lighting it.... with a blow-torch. It's about the most manly thing you can do on a campsite where you're not aloud to chop trees down with big axes.
Sam had bought a beautiful selection of meats and salads and before long we were contentedly stuffed finishing it off with a glass of red.
After dinner, came the drinking games including Good-day Bruce, Zip Zap Zop, or was it Zop Zip Zap? and Yeah Ha! (ask for details when i get back).
The rain that had been teasing with us all evening finally poured down half way through the night and everyone crammed into the back of the van. I had confidence in my tent, but the ground was too hard for pegs and it wasn't long before there were rivers flowing around the sleeping area.

The next morning the sun returned so we were able to dry the tents and head out to the village in search of breakfast: those bamboo rice steamed things I had when my sister was here. We also had some icecream.
In the afternoon we had a walk round the temple in all its glory. This time the view was mist free across the lake Gemma found the only saloon on the lake (or is it just a toilet?)
We were going to go to a good steak house on the way back, but sadly we couldn't track it down so we ended up driving all the way back to Yuanlin trying to find food that would be a change, but would also have an English menu.
We ended up at a BBQ joint... but I could barely stay awake to eat. Gemma and Sharne stayed the night which was cool coz in the morning we had fruit smoothies to start the day: thanks Sharne.