Timaru - the New Home of the Tomkinsons!

Friday 5 December

Lovely quiet morning walking up in the castle grounds. Got chatting with Alan & Cleta who owned the Snowy we had parked up next to. Lots of tales to swap about our vans, our travels and our lives - great to meet fellow travellers along the way. These two are well known in the Kiwi Snowy River community, not only for their cute decal along the side, but for their magnet collection of destinations on the back and also the interesting aerodynamic wing attachments on the rear edge of their van which help prevent sway and also avoid them being sucked into the vortex of any large passing vans!

It wasn’t far to our next stop in Timaru at the Phar Lap Raceway. We settled in, had a light lunch then Louis had a swim at Caroline Bay Aquatic Centre while I sweated my way out to Dashing Rocks in a howling, hot gale! The rocks are like a Kiwi Giant’s Causeway with crashing waves pounding against them.

Back at Banjo we tried to snooze but it was just too hot - I lay on the grass outside and Louis soon gave up on a siesta and chilled in his chair in the shadow & lee of Banjo.

Scrubbed up nicely and went to meet Abby & Jez at their motel for Friday drinkies, then continued at the Speights in town before dinner at The Oxford to celebrate Jez starting his new job with Alpine and them both relocating down to Timaru. The historic old stone building which housed the Speights was very cool - we should come back for a meal one day. They had a live band which started playing as we drank - they weren't bad, and certainly nowhere near as annoying as the tree which kept brushing Jez on the head!

Dinner at The Oxford was good, as before, but surprisingly slow service, especially as the restaurant was not super full.

Popped down to the esplanade to see the little blue penguins come home for the evening. It was pretty chilly but there were loads of people waiting patiently. There were several volunteer penguin helpers and we had a lovely time chatting with Tamarin who shared so much with us - best places to eat, things to do, markets to visit, as well as information about the little blue penguins. She was so chatty and lovely. Finally we got lucky and firstly 4 penguins came in on the waves and waddled/ran across the beach to the rocks underneath us - then another larger group of 6 came in too.

Happy with our. penguin viewing , we swung by Jez’s new workmate Cameron’s house to see the best Christmas lights ever!!! He takes about a month to put them up and adds more each year - such an amazing endeavour. Had a lovely time admiring the lights display and chatting with Cameron, Michael and Moonie the cat and Lily the dog. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!