The rain had cleared when we awoke. When we opened our advent calendar we discovered a drum under window number 10. Despite the ravenous sand flies we had enjoyed being back at Franz Josef. The town has a lovely vibe. After brekky though it was time to leave. It was still very cloudy but as we left a small break in the clouds formed and we got our final glimpse of the beautiful snow capped peaks. We headed north and back towards Hokitika. On the way we stopped at Ross, an old gold mining town which is a quaint looking place. The open cast mine was behind the town and was in use up until around 1990. It has now been filled in with water. There was a little outside museum here with the old gaol and one of the miners cottages to look around. There were some stocks outside the gaol and Jay soon had me in them as I had been a very naughty boy! We had a look inside the gaol but didn't stay inside for long as the building had a very heavy and oppressive energy. There was some sort of spirit energy or residual energy here. Something horrible must have happened inside these walls. After this we looked inside the miners cottage and this had a much nicer energy. From Ross we continued north and back to Hokitika where we did some food shopping at New World. After this we hit the road again in the direction of Murchison where we intended to stop the night. It was just under four weeks ago when we were last here. The road was quite winding in places and was full of the usual aggressive drivers. I think that our overriding memory of New Zealand will be of just how nasty the Kiwis are on the roads. Eventually we reached Murchison and decided to try out a different camp site this time. This one was a few kilometres from the centre of the town and had a great view of the surrounding hills. The weather now was hot and sunny. The lady on reception was extremely friendly and it was a lovely quiet site with excellent modern facilities. We settled down here for the rest of the day enjoying the peace and tranquility. The only drawback was that the sandflies here were at plague proportions! There were even more of the horrid little things here than at Franz Josef. This country has been far worse than Australia for biting insects. At least in Australia the mozzies only came out at night. Here the sandflies are out and biting you 24/7!! There is absolutely no respite from them and it starts to grind you down. We spent our evening in our tin gaol sweating like pigs and watching the sand flies ram themselves against our windows!!! Please get us out of here!!!