Dolphins!!!

Friday 5 June

No glorious sunrise colours - just a grey blue kinda day. But nature had another treat in store for us… dolphins! Two small pods of Hectors dolphins swam slowly past Conway Flat, pausing to play in the waves, gambol out at sea, leap and splash… it was a joy to watch! Louis got some drone footage and I struggled to capture them with my long lens - but have a few recognisable images!

As they passed up the coast I looked south towards the entrance to the POP and spotted a beautiful kārearea, a falcon, sitting on the fence post… love the way he flew out of the final shot, just trust falling into the wind!

Hopped on our bikes once the dolphins had passed along the coast, and set off cycling southward. Spotted a fur seal snoozing on the beach about 1km from our camp - so cute! I’m not sure this kekeno was keen on my paparazzi zoom lens - there was a bit of posing then a bit of grumpiness! Unlike the curly faced bulls over the road who all posed and gazed at the camera as if on a red carpet!

We cycled along about 3-4kms and shackled the bikes at Ploughman’s Creek and clambered down the dodgy path for a walk on the beach in search of the 8000 year old buried forest. What looked like an empty beach kept us amused with an emoji pointing stone, some gorgeous shells including a lacy barnacle encrusted horse mussel, and a "mussel mirkin" which Louis kindly modelled in a variety of poses (a Lorax moustache, an old man comb over and Hey Arnold! hairstyle... but no pubic wigs!!)

We found some ancient tree stumps poking up out of the beach and a bit of old tree root within the clay of the cliff stones. The largest of the 8000 year old buried forest tree trunks was quite ethereal, and looked like inspiration for Minas Tirith, the White City of Gondor, in Lord of the Rings.

Took the obligatory beach selfie then climbed up the wonky path, unlocked our bikes and cycled back for lunch and to pack up Banjo as we decided to move on north to Kaikōura - but not before swinging by the Wind House to purchase a jar of white peach & ginger chutney... nom nom!

Tried out our new Rhino Guard E-bike cover and it turned out to be awesome - so well fitted with all its straps, it’s gonna keep our bikes so well protected on our travels. Constant travelling has been rough on our E-bike covers - the first one lasted over a year and around 15,000kms but the new one we got earlier this year struggled and we’d already replaced it once - Rhino Guard customer service have been fantastic and have found a solution that looks like it’s going to work really well for us. Thanks team!

Heading up SH1 along the coast it was interesting to see a fair amount of rockfall contained within the metal netting that is attached to the cliffs, and as we went under the netting on one of the corners the traffic control had us held at lights and then sent round one direction at a time.

We checked out the NZMCA Trotting Club in Kaikōura but decided the solar there would be poor at this time of year so pushed on to The Pier Hotel and nabbed the last front row spot in their POP - on power here so no solar issues!

Took ELLAMY into town as the sun set in golden, misty glory to the west - and topped up our supplies at New World then liaised with Sarah at Gallichan Truck Life Nz to sort out a catch up, did some admin & blogging back at Banjo

BBQed some pork chops and had a nice hot dinner in Banjo whilst watchin Qi.

Then I popped out for a walk in the dark to get my Fitbit steps… no sign of the Aurora that was being discussed online. I don’t think it showed up until after midnight and was pretty low key. Feeling a bit Gatsby out on the wharf - green light of East Egg and Daisy's Dock shining like a beacon in the darkness.