We spent the evening doing a bit of research on Fiji. We’ve refined our plans for this year to more or less spend 6 months hanging around Fiji. After reading the info we had I’ve begun to get a bit excited. We haven’t formed much of a plan bar checking in at Savusavu or Levuka in preference to Savu. We’ll head west at some point before heading back east again before heading back to NZ. We have to cover north and south in all that. Not much of a plan yet. We figure we’ll learn a hell of a lot more once we arrive and get talking to the cruising community there so we may not get much more specific than this for now.
Temperatures that were 30C during the day plunged to 5C overnight. It was cooooold. It was only in the morning that we remembered we had a heater in the cabin. On the upside we had a night of close bonding.
We checked out and headed out of Hanmer Springs. It was then we noticed the mountains we’d enjoyed the previous day were now dusted with snow. On the one hand it was pretty. On the other it was winter. Time to get out of dodge.
Reaching Kaikoura on the coast was not sufficient to escape winter as the mountains there had a similar, in fact lower, coating of snow. We pushed north.
On the coastal road we stopped at a very nice restaurant called “The Store” for a bite to eat. Upon reaching Blenheim we first checked out a backpackers but unlike the many we’ve recently enjoyed we found this one a bit crowded. We picked a cabin at the nearby Top 10 and settled in.
In the afternoon we had a wander around town. We visited the local Countdown and kicked up another phase of our cruise out of NZ. The stores here are forever discounting certain wines for a few weeks before moving onto other brands to discount. Being cheapskates we only go for the cheaper wines so these discounted wines are tempting. However, not all are to our liking. So…. We’ve decided to sample a cheap one each day and if we like it, load up. Today we bought about 20 bottles of wine. We’ve six months to stock up for so the process has just begun.
After eating dinner which was an almost disaster involving a lot of melted plastic (we got away with it) we headed out to watch the movie Black Swan. As I type I’m still trembling. It was that intense. It was a fantastically made movie and Natalie Portman well deserved her Oscar for an amazing if not disturbing performance.
Tomorrow we have to have the oil changed in the car as we’ve almost done the kilometers recommended between changes. I’m sure we’ll do something else too but not sure what. In the evening we’re hoping to meet Ed and Cornelia from A Cappella who we know are heading into town tomorrow.
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