As we headed north towards Picton to get the ferry to Wellington for the quarter final, we decided to stop in Kaikoura, famous for 2 reasons; whale watching and crayfish eating. We had stopped here before on the way past about a week earlier and were thwarted from doing the whale watching as it had all been booked up for the day we arrived. On that occasion we tucked into some crayfish gleefully. For those of you that don't know, crayfish is basically lobster's ugly cousin. It tastes good though, although it should do for the price it fetches (approx. £30 a piece at a downmarket restaurant), something it shares with its more attractive sibling.

Second time around approaching Kaikoura, we were sure not to make the same mistake again, booking the whale watching days in advance. And so it seemed as though the world was our crayfish!

We arrived on a miserable day, with the camp site pitches becoming a little water logged, and had to spend much of our time tracking down a car windscreen repair man, as ours had split in two after a lorry threw a stone up about 150Ks earlier. With passenger safety not high on the agenda of the camper van hire company, we were told to make do and keep on driving. The omens for us in this town did not appear to be good. And so it proved the next morning when we were advised on our arrival at the whale watching office that the sea conditions were terrible and that although the boat would be sailing there was a high chance of sea sickness. We decided we had been given enough signs that this wasn't meant to be, so with heavy hearts we left Kaikoura for a second time without having seen the damn whales!

We spent the next morning walking the hills around Picton, which really were beautiful. You could see out for miles from the lookout points at the top of the Queen Charlotte track. It seemed that the still ocean, the odd boat and the acres of forest were our only company, oh and of course the Scandinavian hiker having a sandwich beside us!

The weekend was spent in Wellington where the atmosphere in the run up to the Wales v Ireland quarter final seemed subdued from the get go. Maybe it was because some of our party were nursing colds, maybe it was because Paul had left a week earlier or maybe it was the uncertainty as to who would win this game. But something was telling us that many of our fellow fans had gone home after the group game. (This was proven the next day, by the great atmosphere and large numbers of fans around town for the Australia v South Africa game). In the end Ireland were thoroughly outplayed by Wales and although we were impressed by the youthful Welsh side, we couldn't help feeling a really good chance for our boys to create history had gone begging. We picked ourselves up and decided to enjoy the other quarter final game the following day, which was played in the beautiful sunshine, but we left Wellington cursing our luck and sick of hearing about Wales and indeed Whales!

Neil