MOUNTAINS SNOW AND SURF

KAIKOURA SEA FRONT VIEW

Day 10. Need to head north today to catch tomorrows afternoon Inter-island ferry to Wellington and the the long haul drive up to Auckland in time for the SA v Samoa match on Friday night. First back into Christchurch to see if the Museum can help me with my novel cover Photos. Alas the photographic archive was still closed as a result of the Earthquake and so they could only suggest website references to NZ general archives and a good book about WW1 nurses with plenty of photos. So will explore when have next wi-fi access and try the Auckland militart museum in person.
Easy two hour drive along thr north road until burst out by the sea-very similar to the great Ocean Road in Victoria with the added excitement of individual lane tunnels through rocky outcrops. Kaikoura seemed a good place to stay the night , avoid the Islander passenger scrum in Picton and with an early start easily make the afternoon sailing.


I knew that Kaikoura was renown for Whale watching but otherwise I was ignorant of its charms. it seems to have two parts-a long sweeping bay front with majestic mountain views across the water.It was as dead as the Glenelg and Brighton waterfronts in Adelaide on a cooling spring mid-week night. The other is a more tawdry strip of pubs,gear shops to satisfy the needs of surfy drop-outs.
Feared I would not find a campsite when one came up suddenly as I turned a bend-it was a classic backpacker, rundown motel cum campsite-It was run by a Japanese who asked whether $15 was ok to park my van for the night on a powered site?-you get the picture. Mostly bikes and tents. Still, they will tolerate grandpa.
Walked to town and had a beer watching Japan draw in a thriller with Canada. The bar was a tawdry pool hall style affair-so grubby that flies spiralled lazily in the air-more akin to a far-outback pub than one in a pretty cool NZ seaside resort. Decided against a half lobster(reduced from $85 to $59) at a cafe that seemed to serve only lobsters.





The Monteith's pub was a great improvement on the other and I was happy tp command the end of a bench table facing the TV and wait 40mins for a pie that would be fresh from the oven. Many of my fellow watchers (USA v Italy)are Irish on their way south for Ireland's last game. they confirmed that the mass of Irish youth on the road are working in Australia and have not come directly from Ireland. So they are a sort of economic migrant without recourse to Julia's boats.Had an interesting talk with a young Brazilian on holiday from Sydney-he was a bit bemused by the rugby fever and an American,drinking pints with Whisky chasers(a Scottish habit) asked me how many umpires were on the field.