23rd July 2009

We drove about 3 hours towards Akaroa this morning. It is about 75k east of Christchurch. In our lonely planet book we found a free campsite on the beach where we thought we could have a fire for the night in Okains Bay, about 20k from Akaroa, so we planned to head that way. The road to Okains Bay was so bad, it up and around massive valleys with massive drops and nothing to stop us if our wheels slipped over the edge!! It took about 40 minutes to drive only 20k due to the rubbish roads! The closer we drove to the free campground the remote it became. When we got there, there was a library the size of a garden shed, a tiny shop where everything looked out of date and a population of about 10! There were a couple of kids who stopped to stare at us strangely as I dont think they see anyone other than the 10 people that live in this tiny place. It turned out that after the worst drive ever, the campground was pretty pants. You werent allowed to have fires, the toilets were open air and nobody else was around, so we turned back and drove all the way back into Akaroa to a much better campsite!

It was a really nice campsite with amazing views over Akaroa and the massive lake. We parked up right near the cliff face for the night as we were told it had the best views. The views were amazing but tonigth we had a massive storm!! It absoultley chucked it down all night and the wind was so strong our camper was been blown all over the place. Neither of us slept very well as we were waiting for our campervan to get blown over the cliff edge, lol!