On the Road Again

After the madness of the North Island trip, I'd been hoping for a little bit of a break to get life back to normal. But normal life's unexciting, so instead, I was only back in Christchurch for two and a half days before getting back on the road. 

The day after we flew from Wellington, Derek arrived, having booked his flight two days earlier. We'd decided that since I'd be losing my April break (when he'd originally planned to visit), he might as well come early! So that was a happy change. Once the gang had all made it back to Chch, we booked a new car and headed out again. Sadly, Lee did not join us on the second trip, and we missed her lots.

Our first stop on departure day (Saturday, March 5th), was at a beach near Kaikoura. The weather was fantastic and the water was startlingly blue so we spent about half an hour just giddily running around.

We continued driving north and had dinner near Mapua. We set up camp at a nearby beach campsite, where we caught the end of the cloudy, but somehow still spectacular, sunset.