We saw a wild seal!

It's rainy and miserable today and has been since last night. We have our first experience of dumping the waste and filling up the campervan with water in the rain. I don't think anything could be more fun than standing in the pouring rain holding a hose in a hole while it tries to fill up 100 litres of water. Eventually after getting soaked we were off and ready to see Omaru. It's a Victorian town known for it's Victorian style buildings. Firstly we went to a cheese factory and shop. We'd missed the tour of the factory for today so instead we shared one of their cheese tasting platters. I was very proud of myself because I gave blue cheese a try. Didn't like it at all but at least I tried it. Nick loves the stuff so was rather pleased he got the whole piece to himself. Once we finished we moved on and after I messed up the parking metre and ended up paying for parking up until Monday we braved the rain for a walk around town. Luckily the main high street is mostly under cover so we only had quick sprints across the roads unprotected. I'm very glad we have waterproof covers on our backpacks. We darted into an old fashion sweet shop to have a look around. We found many UK sweets so bought all the things we've missed while chatting to the owner. The interest we showed in the business resulted in him offering for us to stay the night in his house with food and showers available. It was an overwhelmingly kind and unexpected offer but we always feel quite nervous in these situations so we politely declined. After all you want to have good faith in people but we had only just met him. We went to a steam punk exhibition which was rather strange and quirky but at least it was indoors. They had a mirror room which was pretty cool to stand in. The rain started getting really bad when we came out and we made a dash to a coffee shop where we sat feeling sorry for ourselves with hot chocolate and coffee. We considered what we wanted to do here in Omaru and after checking the weather came to the conclusion that actually we might as well move on because most things are outside. Once the rain eased a bit we headed back to the van with a couple of visits to charity shops where we got a great Lion King and Westlife CD to play on the road. We waved goodbye to Omaru and headed south and despite the rain we stopped at the Moeraki Boulders which are huge random spherical rocks on the beach. They believe they formed millions of years ago in the mud and as they did so they cracked apart, these cracks were then filled with another substance so when the boulders are split open they look as if they've been hand cemented together in pieces. The cracked surface really makes them look like dinosaur eggs. After our visit we continued to drive south to find a spot to camp. All the places were quite exposed but eventually we came to Shag Point, a place I heard you could potentially see seals. We drove 2km to the end of the point and peering off the cliff we were amazed to see two fur seals. It was so exciting to see actual seals in their natural habitat. Once we felt we had invaded their space enough we drove to our campsite for the night. They had an area for self contained vans and an area for non self contained. Stupidly the area for self contained, which are likely to be large heavy vans, was on grass which had flooded quite badly. After Nick ringing up the council to check we were able to park in the other section on gravel for the night. Hopefully the rain isn't too hard tonight and we are able to get a good nights sleep.Read more