Kaikoura, rain and more

12/11/12

At present sitting in a rest spot about 18 km south of Cheviot.  Celia's reading her Kindle and I've just been for a bit of a walk, first in a small plantation off the side of the road and then down by the river -  the Greta - which is flowing past at great speed, and is quite extensive in breadth.  There's a large chicken [it was probably a cockerel] wandering around in the rest area by the fence; it doesn't seem to have any connection with the place and yet seems quite at home.

Celia and I left the house yesterday morning about ten am with rough plans to find a church and go to a service before we went to the lunch for Heather at 12.30, but we didn't find a church and in the end sat in the Northlands mall and did another of those puzzles we got in Geraldine.  After a false start we managed to do it before we went to the lunch, but last night, trying to do one at home was just impossible.  My son-in-law figured out the first puzzle and I finished it after having got a number off him to get me started, but the second one I tried was beyond me.  It didn't help that the TV was showing some Ken Follett story -we got through two episodes on SoHo - and it was hard to concentrate.  The story was about one of the King Edwards, circa 1372, and involved a very large cast with graphic brutality throughout and rapes (at least two) and hangings and a spectacular bridge collapse with hundreds of extras and two sinister murders by one member of the cast (she disposed of her sister-in-law and her brother at different times) and monks who shouldn't have been in the monastery and more.  Not ideal viewing, really.

The lunch for Heather was great; there wasn't a large number of people there, and they were all family members: four adult siblings belonging to her sister and her husband, and two of the four adult boys belonging to her brother and his wife.  There were four grandchildren running around as well, and that was it - apart from us, the only non-family members.  It was quite a full-on day people-wise.  We're quite glad to have a bit of space today!  We'll see our kids all again at Christmas and that's not far away.

Later on the same day, at Kaikoura.  We decided in the end to hire a cabin tonight.  It's been raining on and off all day and it rained very heavily overnight in Christchurch, and things here are also pretty damp.  Anyway, this makes a nice change and we'll get back to tenting when it's drier.  The camp site is a bit run down compared to the other two, but the 'de luxe' cabin we've got (at the standard rate) is fine and has a toaster and jug and crockery and cutlery.  What more could you need?  The double bed is comfortable too...!


13/11/12
Celia actually found the bed quite hard, and unfortunately we'd put both the big quilt on over us and a quilt that was supplied which meant we got hot and then Celia got up at two to go to the loo and that woke me and from then on I just seemed to doze and sleep fitfully.  We hadn't gone to bed till reasonably late and we should have been tired but at the moment nothing seems to help when it comes to sleeping right through the night.  The place overall wasn't up to much and we only saw one other woman staying there - and she seemed to retire early; her curtains were drawn by about six pm.  Two Indians or Pakistanis who seem to be staying there long term came home in the middle of the evening and watched a violent movie in the cabin next door.  There was a lot of shooting and shouting and screaming and what sounded like a prolonged rape scene with the woman screaming endlessly.  The walls between the de luxe units don't muffle very much.  It continued to rain through the night and things were very wet this morning.  But it finally cleared by the time we got moving.

We spent quite a lot of time this morning in Kaikoura down where the Whale Watch boats leave from - it's all very new and tidy - and talked to a young man who was whitebaiting successfully.  Celia got her rod out but didn't catch anything more than seaweed.   She's out fishing again now at a place called Marfells Beach.  There's a Department of Conservation site here and we came down to see what it looked like as a possible place to stay but while it's a nice enough beach and there's room to camp, we've decided to go onto Blenheim.  We've come to the conclusion that camp sites in towns rather than out of them are probably what suit us best. (We're townies at heart.) We walked and drove round Kaikoura last night and this morning: there's a great deal more to it than you first think and it's obviously going ahead at great guns.


Marfells Beach is just past a place called Ward where there doesn't seem to be much more than a very good cafe, but apparently there's a reasonable population somewhere handy as the Lake Grassmere salt works employ quite a lot of people - we passed them after we'd left the beach.  We also stopped off at a church in the middle of nowhere called St Oswald's, but it has beautiful, though traditional, stained glass in every window - unlike the church in Cheviot which boasted of its stained glass yet they seemed to consist of nothing more than coloured panels!  Cheviot's church wasn't open, but this one, way out in the country, had a key in the door!  The little graveyard behind it, with only about six grave sites, is beautifully set, with the sea in the distance, and a lovely overhanging tree.

I'm reading the latest Ian Rankin in the car while Celia's still fishing so there's no rush to move off.