Frenzy

It blew a lot last night - a lot! The van felt at times like it was on a roller coaster. How strange then to wake to a beautiful sunrise over a crystal blue Pacific Ocean with only a few wispy breezes. For the first time all holiday I really felt like I was on holiday. Set up a comfy chair, made coffee and sat outside absorbing what were rather warm rays for the early-ish hour. As I sat I watched an enormous flock of gulls and other sea birds in a feeding frenzy right in front of me. Apparenlty the kawai (fish) herd smaller fish so they can feed more easily on them and in so doing, the smaller fish can then be easily picked off at the surface by the birds. It made for quite a spectacle. So much so that I decided to follow the frenzy down the beach a bit. A shingly beach which was rather difficult to walk on. I don't think that was too good an idea as this evening, my poor foot and ankle are very swollen and puffy!

Met a lovley guy as I sat outside the van. He'd brought his dog down for a walk and stopped by to pass the time of day. I think he's got things pretty well sorted - he's got his mobile home set up here, right on the beach for 5 months (they're half way through) then will head home for a while before heading to Australia for a month over winter. Life was simple for him - walk the dog and fetch paper from settlement about a kilometre away, read paper, fish a little, watch porpoises play in ocean, have a cuppa . . . . repeat whatever and whenever you feel like it! Needless to say, I stayed longer than I'd originally planned. The sun and the beach were just tooooo lovely.

I eventually headed off down the road in the direction of Christchurch. Just 12kms along the way I stopped at a wonderful spot called "The Store" at Kekerunga but even after such a short drive, it was obvious that the weather was beginning to close in. By the time I was just a few more kms down the road it was rain. As intended, I did stop at Ohau and took the short walk to the pools where, in spring, dozens of seal pups are brought to play by their mums - a kind of a seal kindy I guess! Of course, no-one was home today but it was a pleasant 5 minute walk, even in the rain. I had a few more stops along the way - there are some magnificent beaches and wild spots along this stretch of the coast, and a few walking tracks that look like they will be worth coming back to explore some time. My stopping spot tonight is at Amberley at a small beach camp where the wind is once again blowing (though I'm much more sheltered this time). A short walk along the beach this evening was very short - the cold wind felt more like it was a winter walk than a mid-summer walk so I opted instead for a warm cuppa tucked up inside.

I'm heading through Christchurch tomorrow and - hopefully - onto Banks Peninsula. On my way through Chch though I'll stop in to see hpx - I know from painful experience how hard a broken foot can be!

(BTW - these posts are unlikely to be posted for a while until I can figure out just why I can't get my laptop to accept a wireless signal from my phone. It all worked perfectly before I was 'upgraded' to Windows 8 at the end of last term . . . . now I haven't a clue where to look to find and check things. Grrrr...)