Thursday 18th
A nice nights sleep, full of odd dreams but a good sleep none the less. Poached eggs on toast for breakfast then the usual get up and go routine. We are beginning to feel quite tired again, we're not used to being on the move all the time since being in one place again in Australia....3 more months of this to go, we will enjoy it but we are going to be so tired at the end of it all!
Lets see, what did we do. Well we drove about half an hour to the otago peninsula to see if we could see any penguins and go to the albatross centre. The drive there was pleasant, driving along a road next to the water the whole time. All the bus stops were painted really lovely with nice pictures and colours, and there were lots of odd looking birds on the water to look at. We went into the albatross centre but didnt go on a tour, sightings of them wernt guaranteed due to them obviously being free to come and go and it cost 40 dollars each. Instead we spent a good 45 minutes looking around at all the information boards, it was really interesting. A science teacher in the area in the 1930s spent his spare time camping out and watching the albatross and penguins, collating data and eventually setting up conservation efforts. They really are massive!! We watched a video about how long line fishing is killing thousands of sea birds, it was really informative and we really enjoyed watching it and looking around. It's certainly good to be informed about where your fish is coming from and if they're following the guidelines and rules.
We had a drink in the cafe before heading down to see if we could find any penguins or sea lions but unfortunately there weren't any around so we left without seeing any.
We then made our way back into Dunedin, which is a lovely town with Scottish heritage due to all the Scottish whalers and miners who settled there. Most of the buildings are in a kind of victorian/Edwardian style and it was a very affluent place back in the day. Despite its many lovely buildings, for right or wrong we wernt too fussed about walking around it all day..afterall we have things like that at home that are no doubt older and more impressive! We walked around the octagon which is more or less the town centre browsing shops for a good hour and just enjoying taking it easy.
Then we drove to "the worlds steepest street" as in the Guinness world records. Wow it really is steep! It does say the gradient but I can't remember it right now as it was over a day ago now since we read the sign. There are people living on it, goodness knows what would make somebody buy a house on a street that steep, and the fact it's a tourist spot so people are up and down it all the time. We walked all the way to the top, it got the heart pumping, and wall the way back down, which got the legs shaking. We were a bit disappointed because we were there perhaps 2 or 3 days too soon to see the chocolate festival they have. Cadbury world for New Zealand is based in Dunedin and every year in July they have a chocolate festival, one of the things they do is to ( I think this is right it will have to be checked) race ball shaped chocolates down the street from the top.
Anyway after that we did some more driving, we went through some lovely little towns with nice characters, then had a palaver with finding somewhere to camp again. The address we put in decided to be closed for winter, only none of the signs leading to it said as much it just said once we were almost there. So we drove for about 45 minutes longer than planned and probably missed stuff driving in the dark. That said the last couple of days haven't exactly been exciting views or attractions so its probably best not to get caught up in what was maybe missed. We came across a few more campsites with "honesty boxes" but Liam refused to stay in them because the creeped him out. I suppose he is sort of right about the creepiness, we always approach them in the dark and they're set away from the roads, with weird looking vans that look like murderers might live in them. Anyway after a while we had to settle for a honesty box one, it looked better than the others, I felt safe and liam must have too because he parked the van up.
We showered and re-watched gullivers travels with our tea. I was so so tired, I was falling asleep by 8.30. We had a bit of a giggle with the app that distorts your face on the iPads before I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, I was gone not long after 9pm and Liam wasn't too far behind.
Friday 19th July
Didnt wake up until 8am this morning despite going to sleep not long after 9 so was feeling quite refreshed. Despite that I still didn't surface from bed until 8.30 which is practically unheard of since living in the van! We had a leisurely morning and after breakfast and the usual set off, it took us a while to figure out exactly where we were due to just driving anywhere the night before. It turned out we were in waimate, we decided not to go back on ourselves and keep going. We drove up to timaru but there wasn't much there so we continued up to Geraldine. It was a pleasant little town with lots of little shops which we browsed in. We keep meaning to buy ourselves some possum fur gloves or something similar and almost did here, but we keep saying we will look in the next place! They also had a lot of alpaca based products but although nice and well made, alpaca isn't native to here and it just doesn't seem as good to buy over merino lamb or possum. ( with that said lamb and possum aren't native here but you hopefully get what I mean)
We bought some vintage Geraldine cheddar before sitting with a drink in a cafe, which we love to do! We decided we needed crackers for our posh cheese to have for lunch, so parked up and Liam went into the shop. He came back out with salt and vinegar flavoured wafer crackers. I had to do the best I could with what I had, vintage cheese and salt and vinegar crackers turned out ok once I added a few other bits. We sat in a par reserve and ate before doing more driving up through the inland scenic road and towards kaikoura to see if we have any chance of spotting any whales. We saw a few more hawks today, they fly over quite close to the car and they're massive. We also saw one in the middle of the road with some road kill, it couldn't make up its mind what it was doing and it was there right up to the last second, as well as trying to lift the carcass up with it!
We stopped at amberly for the night, or should I say 20km north. We saw a site which was free online and made for that, it turned out to be a very long gravel road which we drove down in the dark, past fallen down trees and into the darkness we went. We didnt find it, surprise surprise but we did find a little pull in that looked safe enough to park on and looked like it was possibly the entrance to a walking track so we stopped there for the night. An hour or so in my bowels decided they needed a poo, they seem to like doing that when there are no public toilets about, so off outside I went, again. There were no bins or anything this time so it really was au natural go shit in the woods. I took a torch and sort of tried to get far from the van to poop but was too scared to go too far. After the deed was done I was in constant worry over where it was and if people would come across it when walking because the grass seemed awfully short for in the woods and it wasn't a little poo. I decided that I would go back out in the morning to inspect the dirty work and decide if I needed to move it in the light of day!
Liam made another lovely chicken and vegetable stew and we watched Hugo on DVD for the evening. Half way through the DVD a car pulled up in the same area as us which I will admit was a little odd as we were more or less in the middle of nowhere. It drove off for a few minutes and came back and seemed to stay near us but we couldn't see it because it was dark. I assumed they had done the same as us but Liam seemed pretty convinced it was people come to kill us or possum hunters, and was like a deer in front of headlights for about half an hour. I cracked open the liquorice all sorts and got him some chilli chocolate curtesy of Nanna and grandad and he calmed down after a while. He even did some farts which was hilarious because the first couple were accidents, the next few he was doing actions and all sorts to go with them...safe to say he's not quite as fart shy as he was. All I was worried about was what if they stood in my big poo.
