Hoodlum Hounds reunion - plus Ella & Josh!

Tuesday 21 January

Packing out of Kaikoura Top Ten Holiday Park was not the simplest endeavour - especially when you have one of the largest rigs on site and they have set you up opposite the dump station - so every moho in the place is queuing up for a dump as you want to move on! I helped Linus out with her bags and scored a hat trick!

From Kaikoura to Ōtautahi Christchurch - we followed the coast for the first half hour. This road has largely been rebuilt since the Seddon Earthquake in 2013 and we went through several cool tunnels and at one point drove under a huge metal net which stretched across the highway, protecting the vehicles and the road from rockfall.

Just before we turned inland at Oaro we were rewarded with more seals and then dolphins, dusky & hectors gallivanting not far off shore.🐬🩶🖤🤍. The seal was fascinating to watch - it seemed to have caught a large fish, maybe 70-80cm or more and had consumed some of it, but was thrashing it about in the water and waving it in the air then flinging it down, diving for it and repeating the process.

The dolphins were amazing, there were two small pods roughly where we were watching from on the shore, and then a vast pod over to the right along the cliffs to the south. You could see where the large pod was by the huge splashes as they leapt and fell back into the water; our 2 pods were a little less splashy but certainly very showy with leaps and twists which my trusty Canon just about managed to capture on the long lens.

Heading inland we travelled through a changing landscape under blue skies & sunshine and stopped at Cheviot for lunch. It was a cute wee town and the highlight was Number 8 cafe which had a fab selection of cabinet food and a lovely dog friendly garden out back where we snuggled with a few canine visitors. Linus posed with the aggies in memory of Mum - she loved agapanthus and brought some roots back from Portugal in 1976 which she nurtured through over 3 decades of frosty British winters.

On to Woodend past Ella’s old work at Sherwood Estate in amongst a sudden flurry of vineyards, and we reached Ella & Josh’s place around 2pm. Shadow and Jessie seemed generally pleased to see us, but took a while to warm up! Linus was staying in their spare roo, but we had booked into Woodend Beach Holiday Park which was an odd wee spot - we chose a great site and settled in, then were passive aggressively mown around by the groundskeeper who almost took out our power cable!

Popped into town so Louis could have a swim and us ladies could go to ShineOn 😍 (Spoiler alert - Caroline & I came back with a new dress each - oops!). We also did a big shop at the flagship Pak'n'save in town and liked the fun signs... which only encouraged Linus to misbehave in the aubergine department again!!!

Back at the ranch, Josh cooked us bangers and mash for dinner then 3 of us wrangled Jessie & Shadow down to the beach for a photoshoot for Ella’s work. I took Shadow on the hip slip lead we introduced and he was pretty good; Jessie was a bit of a mare on the harness lead. They had a wonderful run on the beach - up and down the shore, in and out of the surf before we sat on the log and waited patiently for a few minutes before Jessie came over to me and let herself be caught - RESULT! We walked back through the dunes and woods by torchlight - I am not sure this is what Linus signed up to ;-)