Otepoti to Kaka Point in the Catlins

Sunday 22 June

Off to the Catlins to explore the eastern end of this beautiful region for a few days… despite some pretty mediocre weather forecasts.

Packed up fairly early, popped to the pool (Louis), Kmart, the cheese sauce store and the supermarket (me) and still managed to leave just 7 minutes after our self-imposed deadline.

We stopped at Waihola next to the lovely lake there for lunch in Banjo and to visit the very beautifully painted facilities.

As we hit the rolling hills into Balclutha the wind whipped up something wicked and tried its best to throw Banjo off the road. We crawled along even slower than James May and decided to brave the route down to the Catlins rather than stop short at Balclutha and wait for the tempest to blow through. Good plan - as soon as we hit the valleys heading out to the coast the wind dropped significantly and we cruised into the holiday park at Kaka Point around threeish - time for a cup of tea!

I headed out for an exploratory stroll around 5ish, but the sun has already set so it was quite dusky & chilly.

Cooked ourselves pork chops for dinner and ate in the camp kitchen, whilst being harassed by Sage, one of two camp cats! She also tried to join us in Banjo, and failing that she settled in for a while on our gin bar!!! Sage is the cat on the left in the triptych below - her colleague Fleck is on the right with more white on her front.

Scrolled through Insta and was highly amused to find my god-daughter Lucy's wife with her at Pride in Scotland wearing a shirt I bought for Loud Shirt Day in 2013 at 2degrees - Lucy had commented on Facebook at the time that she loved the shirt so I took it back to the UK and gave it to her as a joke birthday present... little realising that it would still be in her shared wardrobe 12 years later!!!

Watched PokerFace and fell asleep being buffeted by the wind but feeling snug inside our warm caravan!