This morning we were all up at 7am and through the shower and breakfasted and ready to leave by 8.30am – not bad. We took Andrew’s skis and boots and a bag of goodies out to the Hotel we will stay at on our last night and they will store them for us until we get back there.
We headed up the road in pouring rain, but at least it wasn’t as cold today, apparently the average temperature in Winter is 10 and the average in Summer is 19.5. We have had winter or below average weather most days, but mainly fine and sunny. Today’s rain was OK as we were spending a bit of time in the car.
We travelled up the road to the Mud House winery, where we had morning tea and some wine tasting. Lesson 4 – don’t sit across the table from Noeline when she is armed with a teapot of hot tea. Andrew is now wary of seating arrangements having copped a small spray of hot tea from Noeline replacing the lid after stirring the tea. It must be a family thing, spraying food or liquid over restaurants.
Lesson 5 – Don’t trust Noeline when she says “try some of this.” Obviously I am the Guinea Pig when it comes to this sort of stuff. It was Rotorua Mud Face Mask and once you have it on your hands it is almost impossible to get rid of. A quick scramble for a tissue in my bag, helped a little, but it didn’t remove the grey tinge that had taken over my hands. A quick jaunt to the bathroom and a thorough hand wash eventually got rid of it. I didn’t buy any.
Gerard and Andrew did some wine tasting so I took over the wheel and we headed to Kaikoura, doing a scenic tourist drive out to Gorse Bay. It was lovely hilly, bendy roads and still raining. We stopped to look at Gorse Bay and got wet in a few minutes. We drove through rolling green hills, deep valleys and high mountains with babbling rivers running through the valleys and under the bridges we crossed. I lost count of the one-lane bridges we crossed today.
We arrived at Kaikoura and had a lovely lunch in the visitor centre and checked out their shop. We then travelled a short distance to the seal colony and got within a few feet of a baby seal having a nap on the beach. We walked along the boardwalk and got a few more shots of older seals, they obviously weren’t fussed by having people near by. They were probably wondering what the stupid people were doing wandering around in the rain.
We then headed for Hanmer Springs and our accommodation for the night. We have a whole little chalet thing to ourselves. It has two bedrooms, bathroom, toilet, kitchen, lounge and garage downstairs with a bedroom and ensuite upstairs. It is beautiful and surrounded by a little lawn and garden, which you can overlook from the outdoor patio. It also has a dishwasher in the kitchen and a washer and dryer in the garage. I have done well again.
We wandered off to check out the town after having a cuppa and cheese and bickies and had a nice walk while the rain held off. We went to the Thai restaurant and bought take away food for dinner and it started to rain, it poured and then slowed a little for us to walk back. Thank goodness it wasn’t far or we would have drowned. We lit the fire and we are so comfy and warm its just wonderful. The bathrooms have heaters and warm towel rails, each bedroom has a heater and we are very cosy. Tomorrow we head to Murchison.
