Hanmer springs...

We arrived in Hanmer springs and went straight to Kekapo lodge as they are a spaceship station where you can get offers and exchange your dvds, well they were..three years ago and havent heard from spaceships since so dont do it anymore!!

Then we parked outside the springs which is limited but free and paid only $20 each for a full day until 9pm. These hot water pools range from 36 degrees to 41!! It was a cooler day so it was lovely to get in. The lockers were $2 per hour and are large enough to fit a family of fours things in.

We had a great day here. We even ate at the cafe, they do goyrmet burgers and free water. We had a burger and fries each (deluxe ones) and it only totalled $36 which is v good for an attraction. The portions were huge too and you got an hours free wifi each.

We had our photo taken in the pool but this was $25 for twocopies with four postcards and we didnt like it too much. We spent until 7pm here then walked over to "the lodge" (another conv store with cafe) we got ladagne and a basket of chips. $13 for both and the basket was huge, easily fed a family of 4.

We couldnt find a free campsite anywhere near so we went to the top ten one which is 1 minute down the road and was great $36 for us and had kitchen , car wash, tv and internet room, laundry and hoover so the next day we spent cooking, cleaning the car and doibg laundry. The weather was being a bit funny so we thought it best. The internet was $7 a day so we used it to book our skydive, ferry and whale watch. We checked our funds which are looking healthy and are kepping out spends book up to date.

We got all our jobs done and the camper smelt fresh again which it needed!! Around 4.30pm we toom a walked around tge village, got some souvenirs and bought some fudge. Couldnt resist, 3 blocks for $12.50 - 3 diff flavours and all sooo scrummy.

We came back to "the lodge" for fish and chips at $3 pp and once it stopped raining, made our way back to the site to carry on our travels up to Kaikoura.

We arrived at Kaikoura after 2.5 hours and went in search for the whale watch place ready for the morninf. It was easily found as it was cleatly sign posted and right on the beach, after tjis we went to find a campsite which were all full or very expensive as a music festival was on called Seafest. So we ended up driving out 30km to come back 20km to a site called Seawards pottery. It was gorgeous, right on the beach, plenty of campers and people having fires and really quiet but FREE.

Night all

S&L xx