Happy Halloween (They celebrate it here too.)
This morning we tried out the showers at the campground and they were hot and clean! What more could you ask for? After getting organized we pulled our plug and drove into town for breakfast at a coffee shop. The coffee shop owner was trying to explain rugby to us. We are still trying to figure it out. He said the All Blacks are playing tomorrow night in the Rugby World Cup, so we plan to find a place to watch it.
We got on the road around 8:30. The scenery along our drive was beautiful. Grassy meadows, hills with snow capped mountains, sheep and lambs, and cows. Unfortunately there weren’t a lot of places to pull over to take a pictures so I will to bring most of it home in my memory. Here are a few pictures that we did manage to take.
We stopped along the way so I could have some cereal since I didn’t have anything to eat earlier. This van really is convenient.
About half way into our trip we drove along a coastal road. The sea was turquoise and there were snow cover mountains behind the bay—really amazing. There was an earthquake in this area in 2016 which damaged the road so there was a lot of road construction that slowed us down. No problem, we have time…
It was supposed to take 2 hour to drive from Hanmer Springs to Kaikoura but because of the construction and our stops it took a little longer to arrive at the campground. Here is the view out our windows.
Rick took a little nap and I did research on things to do and see on the North Island. We haven’t make any Airbnb reservations, only a reservation for a car. We checked into canceling the car reservation and reserving a campervan but there aren’t any available from the company we are using. After Rick’s nap we went out to lunch. This area is famous for crayfish so the guy in the campground office suggested we go to a street vendor up the road.
We got there and they showed us a cooler with crayfish cut in half. They were expensive, the price was based on size but most were around US$50. They looked like lobsters without the claws. They were too big for Rick to eat and I wasn’t sharing it so he got a seafood stew. Yum!
After lunch we did the peninsula walk. We walked on the cliff in one direction and then went down some stairs and walked back on the rocks. The whole walk took about two hours. Along the way we met two young men who were walking too. One was from Australia and the other was from the Czech Republic. It was interesting to talk to them and learn about their lives. We saw seals sleeping on the rocks.
We returned to the van and drove to the gas station to fill up and then went to the grocery store. Rick cooked New Zealand lamb chops for dinner and they were delicious. That evening I worked some more on our North Island itinerary and I think I have it figured out.
Here’s our route from Hanmer Springs to Kaikoura.
