On our way down south we kept to the winding coastal road around mount taranaki and followed the "surf highway". To actually know why it had that name we took some random turn offs and found many magnificent waves hitting the shores. But the tasman sea is pretty cool in summer and bl@!dy cold in winter and other than a lonely lighthouse and some stray sea gulls we did not find much life at the sea. On the way to Wanganui we did comit a slight folly by escaping onto a patch of wet grass on one of our turn offs and looking at the picture of me you'll see how much fun I had getting the camper out of the mud.

After several breaks and strolls a the beach we arrived rather late in Wanganui and parked a the end of long beach drive at a deserted parking lot where we went to the beach to marvel at a phenomenal sunset. The unique thing about Wanganui beach was the humoungous amount of driftwood littering the beachfront. It looked eerily like a driftwood cemetery and together with the rising mist in the distance and the settling sun it was quite a spectacle to watch.
The next morning we got up bright and early to look for shells which were not broken or ruined and made our way to the park to feed a flock of ducks. Virginia lake offers itself quite nicely for this hobby and within no time the ducks had snatched the bread out of my hands and Laura had fed all hers to the ducks surrounding us. This meant of course that much to Laura's dismay, no food was left for all the geese and ducks and birds and chicken on the other side of the lake. One duck did not seem to bother too much though and paddled a few feew ahead of us in very much a tour guide fashion giving us the grand tour of the lake. Laura would have adopter it on the spot...

Finally we had had enough of ducks and birds and travelled to Palmerston North, which turned out to be rather boring and we looked for sleeping arrangements closer to Castle Point on the east coast. Easier said than done and after I spent the best part of an hour straying aobut the countryside looking for a quiet and level pach of gravel we headed back to the highway and parked on a picknick area just of the main road. What we were to find there we would not have dreamt of. A crowing fat cock sitting in the middle of the tree marking his territory. After several failed attempts to get rid of him we had to admit defeat and just hope that he would  not keep us up all night. Well, until four in the mourning we had our peace until he and two of his colleagues decided to praise the day with an orchestrated crowing canon until we were wide awake.

Lacking sleep we battled our way to the east coast and were nearly swept away by the gusts of winds at castle point. Steffi did tell us it would be windy... within a few minutes our noses had frozen and our ears were threatening to fall off. It was pretty there, but not nice enough to convince us to suffer the ordeal for a whole night. Especiall as we had found out the night before that our camper is not well isolated on one side and the wind kept creeping in.Thus we carried on direction Hutt and found a cute camp site in Carterton for merely 10$ per person. Accordingly the showers and toilets were not the greatest, and there was no internet, but noetheless it was nice. And the weird owner even had a great tip for the next day. "The Paua Factory". That was  great. Thousands of different designs and shells and pearls and jewellery...and...and..and

After Casterton we made our way to Hutt and wound our way through the hills of Upper Hutt only to receive a boring introduction to the sights at the I-Site. After we had a look at one of the locations of the Lord of the Rings shootings and could not find any resemblance with any part of the movie, especially as there were no signs, notes, pictures or any form of help to identify the scenery, we carried on to Lower Hutt and spent the afternoon in the big shopping center, which was worth looking at. Many grat shops where one can spend loads of money. Well, once we have a job we already know where we can spend all our money.

Today we'll have a lazy day and will have  a look at Wellington.
Soon we'll have more news!