This morning we woke up to the sound of rain on the roof of the van. We waited until it sounded like it had stopped before running to the showers - it hadn't! We packed up in the rain and ate our breakfast sheltering under the back door of the van which was open. As we were getting ready to go, Laura closed the back door and soaked herself in the water that had collected on top!

First stop of the day was the I-Site in Blenheim as we didn't have any South Island info, so we spoke to the woman in there for a while. She was impressed by our knowledge of NewZealand and how we were doing so far! After collecting an armful of leaflets and brochures, we parked up in town and found an internet cafe to do some blogging, a post office for postcard stamps (we were served by a friendly Scottish lady) a bookshop to buy a new diary and the Warehouse (Matalan-esque) for a lamp for the van! Successful morning for us!

We'd decided to drive to Christchurch today and had found a cheap campsite for the night so we spent the rest of the day driving. We stopped at a roadside picnic spot for lunch and later at a car park by the ocean to take photos of the seals lazing on the rocks (like the one on this page!) We eventually arrived at the campsite at around 4pm where it was raining...again!! We cooked in the camp kitchen and then came the highlight of the day...setting up and turning on our new lamp! It's all go for us travellers! For the past five weeks we've been reading by torchlight most nights in the van so the lamp is a godsend...but only if we're on a powered site, which we didn't really think of when we bought it!