Well we decided on Cromwell as our place to settle. This morning we load up “again” and start to head south.

I took this whilst waiting on James to bring out the rest of the cases, but I had to get them anyway as he was still munching on breakfast.

We left Nelson and headed off with the intention of reaching Christchurch if we could.

Once clear of the town we spotted some mist in the valley, it looked spectacular although the pictures do not do it justice.

And another one.

A short while later we came across a cafe and toped up with morning coffee. Just to the left of this was a deep gorge that looked incredible in the early morning light.

A while later we needed yet another coffee break and came across this roadside garage.

Denise and James went in search of Coffee and I checked the tyre preasures. The garage owner was very helpful and asked me what I was up to here in NZ. As soon as I opened my mouth he said “Your from Devon” No I replied, not Devon. “Yes….Devon” No…..Yes….No….Yes. NO! I am from the midlands, Ah that would explain it, but I still think your from Devon.

“Are you staying in NZ” he asked. Yes I replied. “Ah! then god know what accent you will end up with”

He gave a beaming smile and then said “You all have a great day now” and then he trundled of back into the garage.

We hit the road again and now the next step was to make for Kaikoura

This route will take us on the coast side and past a seal colony that we may be able to take some pics of.

We were soon driving along the coast line, this is quite rugged and windswept, a sort of untamed and wild beauty as the waves crash on the shore. This is the place for Whale watching, if you have the time. Presumably they also like to call into the seal colony if they get peckish!

This is the seal colony lookout point

Soon after this we here heading back in the Canterbury region and towards Christchurch.

The next place we reached was Amberly, where James suggested that we should do some fishing and have a competition on who could catch the biggest.

I Won!

James conceeded defeat and we hit the road again.

We reached christchurch and decided to push on to Ashburton. We achieved this and started looking for a motel.

There is generally only one time you cant find a vacant motel room anywhere on the south Island, its when there is some convention or the like.

Yep there was one on in Ashburton, every Motel was full. We were now exhausted having been on the road for some 8 hours!

We had no choice but to push on, and on and on. Eventually we reached Timaru and found a motel with a great restuarant opposite.

I had two lambs shanks followed by half a bottle of white. It was worth the extra miles. :-))

We are now much further down than we intended so this is actually a good thing as I have arranged to meet a real estate agent in Cromwell tomorrow. Tomorrow we are house hunting, we will see if we can find a nice renter to get settled in and then look for somewhere to buy if all goes acording to plan.  But those of you who know me will know that Plans are not generally in my nature. I much prefere to deal with what comes up at the time and then just move forward.

Catch up with you tomorrow, maybe with some news that we can unpack the cases for a while. :-))

Martin