Racking up the KM's

I guess when you've spent 3 months travelling the country and only have a select few things left to do on each island you end up with days like today where you spend all day driving. At least the road between Christchurch and Picton does have some lovely stretches of scenery on it. We set off reasonably early and every time we pack up the car I realise how conviennient it is to be travelling this way rather than by bus. We can shove everything in and not worry too much about fitting things into two bags each. We are also able to carry cooking equipment and food with us so we can save money in each Top 10 by making our own dinners. We'd already decided to stop in Kaikoura for a break for lunch and to stretch our legs. I forgot how much I love this little town and I feel rather impressed by how it's brought itself back to life after the devastating earthquake that struck the region making it non accessible from the North. We visited our favourite gift shop here, with it's awesome artwork on the side of the building, to buy a few gifts mainly for each other. When you're in a sea side town you have to have fish and chips so that's what we shared for lunch as the rain began to catch up from Christchurch that we had thought we'd left behind. We'd hoped to get this amazing chai flavoured ice cream they had in a shop last time we were there but unfortunately the shop wasn't selling it now so that was a bit of a shame seeing as we loved it so much before. Unfortunately though it was soon time to hop back in the car and begin the next leg of the journey up to Picton. It was rather impressive to see how much the road has continued to be rebuilt on the stretch above Kaikoura since the last time we drove it and how it had nearly half the sections of road works and even some laybys and pull ins set up now for people to see the seals on the rocks below which weren't there before. Eventually we made it to the Picton Top 10 and after setting up in our cabin we went over to the kitchen to cook. To our wonderful surprise their was a teacher in there who had made a huge pot of rice and chilli concarne and offered us some seeing as all her 27 kids had eaten. It was an amazing gesture and just perfect to not have to cook after such a heavy driving day. We were in and out the kitchen within 20 minutes and I couldn't thank her enough for her generosity. Some people are just awesome.Read more