Last few days on South Island

After a very wet and windy Sunday in Dunedin - spent in the wonderful Otago Settlers Museum (a free and extremely well-constructed museum tracing the early settlers, mostly Scots, who built the city) followed by a leisurely late lunch - we returned to the city centre the following morning to find it transformed by bright sunshine.

As Scottish as...

...with a touch of Irish green for St Patrick's day

Someone else obviously got a bit soggy on Sunday!

We headed north with a bit of the main State Highway 1, which broadly hugs the east coast, and a then a slight detour inland for something more twisty and interesting:

The safety rails on this single-track bridge were pretty rotten and falling apart

We camped at a tiny DOC site (only 6 places, technically, but 9 cars and campers somehow squeezed in) just north of Kaikora on Tuesday night and packed up a wet tent this morning after a night of persistent drizzle.

We're now in Blenheim - centre of Marlborough wine country - in a very tidy camp on the river side, enjoying bright warm sunshine again; the tent steamed briefly when we opened it up. We have just 2 more days on South Island before we catch the ferry on Friday and we are so pleased with our trip. Can't believe that we've had 6 weeks here but it's great that we've camped on all but 3 days and we've seen some wonderful places, ticking off most of the 'must-see' spots without feeling that we've been on the 'standard' camper van route.

When we get back to North Island (and we're very happy that the forecast for the ferry crossing looks good) we'll spend a couple of days in Wellington, where we hope to meet up with Peter & Heidi from Stormvogel, just returned from an amazing trip across a substantial part of Australia. We'll meet up with friends in Auckland at the end of the month and then we'll be back to Maunie to get her ready for voyaging again. A busy few weeks lie ahead.