New Zealand

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The pounding rain woke us up a few times in the night and at one point we weren’t sure whether we’d be able to go anywhere as the van was being blown around so much even in the driveway. Luckily by the time we got up it had calmed down a lot, although there were still black clouds above.

After showers and breakfast, we said our goodbyes and thanks to Gail and David and set off along the Catlins coast. The rain finally let rip and it stayed with us for the rest of the day, although at times we just managed to outrun it giving us a few minutes respite for photos before it caught us back up again.

We attempted to see some rare Hector Dolphins and failed miserably. We did manage to see a petrified forest on a beach which was around 180 million years old but although it wasn’t quite raining, it was freezing cold so we didn’t stay long. Matt went to see Mclean waterfall but it was pouring down and my ribs had been hurting a lot over the past few days (ever since the fall) so I didn’t make the 40 minute return journey with him. Unfortunately the tide wasn’t right to see the large cathedral caves we passed so we drove on. As the rain was coming down heavily we decided not to have any more stops and instead to continue straight to Dunedin.

When we arrived in town we decided to take a trip to A&E to get my ribs checked out as it still hurt to breathe and seemed to be getting worse. After a wait I was finally diagnosed with cracked ribs and given some fantastic strong painkillers which cheered me up no end. It also made Matt feel guilty enough to want to look after me and make me coffees, do the washing up and such like so I wasn’t complaining.

Given the pain I was in we decided a take away was in order, so we ran (as best I could) from our motorpark, to the Chinese next door. We ordered a massive amount of food as we hadn’t eaten since breakfast and it was now late evening. A few glasses of wine mixed nicely with the painkillers and washed down the massive platefuls of rice and noodles.

As usual, we then had to read through all the leaflets and guidebooks to decide what to do tomorrow.

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