Free - to do what you want!

Tuesday 27 May

Chilly morning in Invercargill and we were in a rush - gotta use the showers and clean the BBQ before the power went off at 9am due to powerline works outside the camp. It was a bit of a cone chicane to exit the campsite then a detour to Fat Bastard Pies for Louis and Liquorland for Jez before we headed westward to Riverton and on to Monkey Island.

We parked up at the freedom camp there, right beside the beach and had lunch in the sunshine. Abby had to work (as usual 🥺) so Louis, Jeremy, Harley and I went for a stroll along the beach.

Louis could not resist the allure of the water and ran in for the quickest dip ever… a millisecond plunge into the chilly waves!

Once Abby had finished for the day we pottered over to the tiny Monkey Island and climbed to the top for beautiful pre-sunset views. Back on the beach Abby spotted an octopus sprawled across the sand so with great care and a couple of bent sticks she and Louis carried it across to the rock pool where it seemed rather relieved and curled up under a big rock. Not sure what had dragged it onto the sand in the first place, but it seemed a little worse for wear with damaged and missing tentacles. I hope it survived!

Watched the sunset then had dinner in the Moho, Louis had an early night and I caught up with some blogging.

The sky above was spectacular when I stepped outside around 10pm - I forgot to look for an Aurora, but the velvet black sky & pin prick stars were stunning. All this and no charge for our camping spot!