Today marks the halfway point of our New Zealand trip with
about 4000 kilometres on the ol’ campervan.
We had a good jump on the day and hit the road nice and early. We stopped in Masterdon for some cash and
look around a dollar store for some glow sticks for light painting. We snagged some items including some Pokemon
cards for Tegan, she swore she needed another activity to keep her busy and
this was it. With the river valley comes
flat roads and they were relatively straight; a welcome change. The Martinborough holiday park wasn’t too
grand with its offerings, but adequate and clean. It lacked a TV room and a playground and that
was about all.
We headed straight for Cape Palliser and the Puangirua
Pinnacles.
The hike was nice and short only about an hour to get up the pinnacles
and then an hour to get down. This was
one of the places used as a shooting location for Lord of the Rings; Tegan
didn’t recall the location even with me trying to refresh her memory. On the trip up Tegan accidentally broke the
screen on her rugged camera. Good thing
I got a replacement warranty for her camera; it will be heading back for fix or
replacement once we get back to Canada.
Next stop was to go see a fur seal colony located just past
the lighthouse on Cape Palliser; only we found them just before the lighthouse
among a rocky outcrop. I was stopping to
photograph something entirely different and Tegan was off around a boulder getting
acquainted with the seals there. She got
barked at by a couple of seals when she got too close. I began shooting photos of the seals and
couldn’t believe how close you could get to them if you were cautious. I got some fantastic shots and those baby
seal eyes are crazy cute when they glance up at you.
On the way back we saw some experienced surfers riding the
waves on the coast and the sight of the south island with its snowy peaks could
be seen across the Cook Strait. We
stopped and grabbed some groceries for a supper of potatoes, green beans and
barbeque lamb chops. It was delicious
although Tegan didn’t enjoy the taste of the lamb. Tegan made friends with a little girl from
France named Agathe. They were extremely
fun to watch and extremely rough with each other as they played full
tackle-grapple-rugby around the campground as it neared dark. I cleaned up our mess from diner and then it
was off to bed.
