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| A Pebble Beach at McKee Reserve Camp Site |
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| Beautiful Sunsets Every day |
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| Coffee In Nelson |
Today we travelled from McKee Reserve to Kaikoura.
It was a funny day.
We woke in the Hippy Camper and slid open the door to a cool and fresh morning and a gaggle of ducks responding in co-ordinated formation to the voice commands of our neighbour, Kay. She and her husband Ron, it transpired, had sold the house and bought a mobile home the size of The Rolling Stones Tour Bus. Ron was fixing some pipes somewhere leaving Kay to experiment with some new perfume and some High Step marching band routines for the ducks. They had the foot work down to a tee but were struggling to keep the bugle and drums in time.
As we spoke, Kay was learning a hard lesson about the wisdom of trying a new perfume outside the controlled environment of the tour bus. Clearly she had mistaken perfume atomiser for the bottle marked 'Sand Fly Aphrodisiac' and with in seconds she was beating a chaotic retreat, hooting the alarm, arms waving in a vain attempt to neutalise the attackers.
The ducks didn't know what to make of it and the neat formation began to fall apart. Ducks collided and tripped; sashes were torn and muddied; trombones were bent at right angles. It was all ruined, the Baton Major confided to me as he was straightening his feathers, when the dust had settled.
After breakfast, we headed for Nelson; a charming over sized market town of the type so popular in the Antipodes, only because all services and amenities have to coalesce around a central point due to the sparse populations and the improbable distances and natural obstacles that lie between neighbouring towns.
After toasted cheese and ham sandwiches, Clare sparked a minor diplomatic incident by walking away with the cafe's copy of the Weekend Times, so taken was she with the European breaks advertised in the travel section. After much agonizing, we bought a computer for our swelling picture library, from a delightfully helpful John at Noel Leeming Electricals on the High Street. Go and see him if you are passing. He will always do a good deal.
We then took the switch back to Blenheim. Pressing the Hippy Camper to Warp 11 through the impossibly steep and winding mountain roads, with the Di-Lithium Crystals preparing to lodge a formal protest, we were over taken by a series of lorries; the first carried Manuka Honey and the following ones, a range of diary products.
New Zealand is a great place. Go to Blenheim. They even have their own Lake of Milk and Honey, albeit that you have to pick the lorries out of it first.
Through Havelock, the Green Lipped Mussel capital and past giant piles of felled trees and lakes, bright purple with algae, we sped, noting every small town's passion for a museum and a restored court house. We descended over a final escarpment, and the blazing sunshine disappeared first into haze and then mist. After a final turn we faced the Pacific Ocean for the first time since Hot Water beach, which in 5 miles, changed to arid uplands into fertile valleys and plains.
At Ohua we stopped to marvel at the seal colonies.
Shortly before arriving at Kaikoura, we passed signs for 'Lions Back Re-Alignment'.
Sounds like a pretty niche practice, if you ask me.
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