We left Christchurch in 28*c and this heat continued South with us. The road was so easy! It is a very straight road along a never ending plain. The mountains in the distance are running parallel with the coast and the road and railway follow inland about 20 miles from coast. There were so many farms with mainly sheep and cattle although we saw some wheat and vegetables on fields. As we noticed before each field is bordered by high fir tree hedges.

We stopped half way at Ashburton. This is a very busy town with wide streets, plenty of parking and trees everywhere. We are getting good at finding coffee shops along the way!

We crossed 3 wide beautiful rivers and saw so many birds. At one was a huge sculpture of a salmon fish about 20 feet tall. Sorry Lily Grandad wouldn’t stop for a photo of it 😳

Well we are now at Timaru in the Comfort Hotel which is full of very noisy chinese tourists. (NB they arrived at 9pm were so noisy until 10 pm then complete quiet until 6.30am. They shouted and were noisy until 7.15 when they left on their coach!)

The beach here is sandy and safe for swimming. The Penguins come into the bay each night at dusk. We saw a dead penguin on the beach. Vince and I chilled out on a conveniently placed washed up tree trunk on the beach until we just got too hot.

In the evening we went out for a meal and had tasty NZ lamb and vegetables.

slept really well  xxx