Monday 14th February

A lovely night’s sleep in a well equipped motel room.

Woke at about 0715hrs, showered, dressed and repacked the car before 8.00am!  The coach tour has improved our morning efficiency.

We went to the café next door to the motel.  Ian had a kiwi breakfast of bacon, sausages, hash brown, eggs, mushrooms tomatoes and toast.  Linda, mindful of the impending boat trip, had home mixed muesli, beautiful yoghurt with red berries and then helped Ian out with his toast.  We had elected to sit outside as the weather was warm.  The sea was calm and we had a beautiful view of the mountains.  Unfortunately as we were eating the wind sprang up and we watched the mountains disappear into the cloud and the sea started to show some white caps.
Then we were off to the Whaleway Station for the whale watch experience.  The office for the whale watch company is in the old Railway station, hence the name.  It was extremely blowy by the time we got out of the car and we elected to take fleeces and waterproofs with us.  Unfortunately, the weather was so bad out at sea (wind 20 knots gusting to 30) that the company had cancelled all morning sailings.  They were hoping to have a sailing at about 1630hrs but as we are driving over to Hanmer Springs we reluctantly decided not to wait. 

Driving out of Kaikoura we stopped in a bay to watch the rollers coming in.  They were getting worse, so Linda was quite relieved not to have been out on the water after all.

We turned inland and enjoyed some lovely sunshine and views.

We stopped for our morning coffee in Waiau.  On the map it looks a fairly large town but it was really a one horse town where the biggest building was the local service garage.  We then drove into Rotherham which was larger but nothing outstanding.

Unfortunately, the clouds closed in and we lost the colour and brightness of the scenery.  Also, although the roads were relatively traffic free, at the speed we were happy to drive at, there always seemed to be a vehicle behind us so stopping to take photos was very difficult.  We did stop in a lay by to allow a lorry to pass us and then came across a dead opossum.  In the words of Megan, our coach driver in the North Island,

“The only good possum is a dead possum. Squashum!”

 

Just after we turned north towards Hanmer Springs, we found a decent viewpoint where we could see a gorge and the road bridge over it, which they often use for bungee jumping, and the valley in the opposite direction.

A few miles later we reached Hanmer Springs.  It is definitely an up-market resort and our hotel is one of our best stops so far. 

We called in to ask if we could leave the car while we had a walk around the town.  Fortunately, our room was ready and we were able to check in at 1.00pm.  After our picnic lunch of muesli bar, banana and a cup of tea in our room we had a wander around the shops and then went for a walk in the woods behind the town.  The woods were silent, we really missed the cicadas, and there were very few birds.  This week the local council have put out poison bait for the wasps but thankfully we did not encounter any wasps on our stroll.  The weather has changed again and as the Canadians say “it was moisturising”.

We have seen a number of camper vans in our travels and are happy we decided to have a car and spend the night in motels/hotels.  This is one of the better decorated camper vans we have seen.

Dinner was taken at Jolly Jack’s.  Ian started with a huge bowl of carrot and squash soup which was delicious.  He finished with Pavlova, the national dish of the Kiwis, which he did allow Linda to share with him! 

Main courses were Blue Cod for Linda and Chicken Curry for Ian.