It's photo time! I'm currently in Kaikoura and there's not a huge amount to do in the evening here so to avoid hitting the beers too early I've been clearing space on my camera and updating my blog.

The scenery here is amazing (now the sun came out and I could actually see it. Still windy beyond belief though). I started off in Picton (not as early as hoped - obviously) which looks like this:

which is all very pretty, but small!

Initially the countryside south towards Blenheim reminded me of the midwest of the USA merged with the scottish highlands. All long grass waving in the wind, but on huge hills. Plus all the truck stops and farms look very american. After a while you hit the coast and it changes dramitically:

That's the pacific on the horizon. Obviously I wouldn't take a photo while driving, this one was taken by one of the blonde nympho hitchhikers I picked up out of Blenheim.

Okay, fair enough, I did it - naughty me. Can't say I wasn't keeping an eye on the road though! :)

Further on it because more wooded and the mountains looming on the right are all snow-capped.

And finally I reached Kaikoura, which is very pretty indeed.

I went on what turned out to be a 15km walk. I started along the cliff top walk to South Bay, intending to come back along the shoreline route shown on my map. Unfortunately due to over-exuberance I kept going all the way to South Bay rather than descend the cliff halfway there. Thinking I could come back along the shore I scrambled along a very rudimentary path until I rounded a corner to come face-to-face with a seal colony.

Now you're not supposed to get too close to these guys because they're wild and can really give you a nasty bite (plus it disturbs them). With my way blocked by seals I turned to go back only to see the tide had come back in and had cut off the path round one of the headlands. My only route out was to climb the hill and make my back back along a sheep track. Halfway back a landslide had taken the path out and what with it being scree I couldn't turn round. Hmmm. Wasn't sure how I was going to do this. In the end I quite literally took a running jump at the gap and only slid down a few metres before grabbing on to something. Getting back on the main track I finally located where I should've gone down the cliff face to begin with and came back into Kaikoura at sunset about 5 hours later! I think you'll all agree that it looks even prettier...

Time for food! Crayfish is the local speciality. Yum.