Thursday 6, 2006

The destination for the day was Hanmer Springs. For us this was the real start of the trip, as we had reached new ground, having said that, the road from Raetihi to Wanganui had been a real gem, with great scenery and lots of curves.

Tommy and Rosa were spot-on on time, as usual and we were good to go. The first stop was Blenheim, we needed some fuel and Tommy and Rosa needed to get out some cash. I took the opportunity to buy a new bungi cord for my tank bag to replace on I had lost on the ferry, while Tommy and Rosa went into town to get the cash.
Rosa had attempted to use a Kiwi Bank cashflow machine, it made all the right noises, but refused to spit out the money. It did manage to print out a receipt with the amount it has supposedly paid out. As there is never a Kiwi Bank when you need one, we had to leave the resolution of this for another day.

Soon we were riding through the hills on our way to Kaikoura, the road was excellent and the scenery stunning. We made good progress towards Kaikoura, stopping only for the occasional photo and to admire the scenery. As it was our intention to sample some crayfish we stopped at the first stall that looked like it might sell them.



Sure enough, they had crayfish, albeit chilled ones. The price seemed reasonable and away we went eating half of one each. You sure have to work for your food while eating one of these little critters.



The next stop was Kaikoura. We needed some supplies as we intended to cook ourselves that evening. As there was a brand new Supermarket we had no trouble finding what we were looking for. Further on we found the entrance to the town centre and spotted a sign that said “Seal Colony�. Tommy and Rosa had spotted some in the distance earlier on, but this seemed like a good opportunity to get a bit closer.

We were in luck, a couple of seals were in residence. The signs asked people to stay away for at least 10 metres. Most people must have misread feet for metres, and so we got closer as well, as you do.







I must say the seals seemed to enjoy the company and didn’t look bothered at all. These guys were sunbathing and resting, they were obviously used to human company. Of course if they’d had a sense of history the seals would have been a bit more cautious with humans around

Having satisfied our curiosity we moved on towards Hanmer Springs, taking the inland road. Again the scenery was outstanding and the roads must have been made for motorbikes. It became hard to make up my mind whether to enjoy the road or the scenery. The road was such that you had to concentrate really hard if you were going at any speed at all. In the end I settled for some fast runs, followed by admiring the scenery while the others caught up.



[img]http://www.2aufweltreise.de/januar2006/1041.JPG[/img]

The close we go to Hanmer the better it got.

[img]http://www.2aufweltreise.de/januar2006/1044.JPG[/img]

We arrived in Hanmer Springs at around 5 pm and proceeded to check into the local Backpackers. Tommy and Rosa were off camping again, but we used the kitchen of the back packers to cook dinner. After dinner we went up to the hot pools and spent the evening relaxing, soon any tension drained away, the perfect end to a day of riding. The weather had been excellent so far, perhaps a little on the cool side at times, but definitely comfortable. This was the end of Day 3.