01/04/09

I woke up really early and laid in bed reading until about half 10 because it was so cold. I finally got up and we drove in to Hanmer where we went over to the hot springs. It was freezing outside and the sun unusually hadn't broken through yet, it was actually spitting. We got changed and got straight in to the first pool we saw. It was 38 degrees and my feet were tingling for about 10 minutes after getting in. We spent the day dipping in to all the various pools, the 36 degree ones were far too cold to stay in, I liked the 42, it was nice and warm, but smelt of rotten eggs so I couldn't stay there too long. After we noticed that all our feet were pruned we decided to get out.

The girls had cubicled showers, but we had to make do with an open one, so we got the inevitable fat old bloke getting his piece out in front of us and drying it with the classic towel between the legs and pulling it back and forth motion. Rich and I had the pleasure of watching Pat shave while we were attempting to lather up our regions whilst still in our shorts. They had a really good little tumble dryer for our shorts. You ram them in hold the top down and it spins them around mentally for as long as you want and they come out pretty much dry.

We went back to the camper and had lunch then the girls and I went to hire out some mountain bikes. We found a place that could do them for 2 hours at $20, but they only had 2 available, so we went to a place down the road where they were $25. Coops got one out from here, we were expecting the woman to offer them for $20 when we told her that we were about to go down the road to get 2 more so she would still get some money off us, but she didn't. Helen didn't like the bike she got, she claimed it felt like a kids bike because it was so low, so I had that one. We were given a 'map' by the company Coops got hers from but after biking down the road for 2 minutes we soon realised that it was an absolute heap of s***. We had no idea where any of the bike tracks were, every turning we came across had a no bikes sign on it. We eventually found a decent track and I loved it, we were bombing down hills, in and around trees and over huge roots, really good fun. We then came across a really steep hill, but it was covered with gravel, I managed to get to the top of it, every time I peddled the wheel just slipped and skidded and moved me about 10cm forward. The girls decided to push it to the top. When we reached the end we had no idea where we were, we bumped in to a group of elderly people that we had passed earlier and got the time off them, it made us feel a bit better that they had no idea where they were going either. We ended up finding a residential area a little while later and stopped to ask a couple where we were and how to get back to town. They laughed at us and told us it waS impossible to get lost in Hanmer. Turns out that we were only 50 metres from where we picked the biked us from when we asked them.

Coops dropped her bike off and I gave her a seater back to the other place, which she seems to think is called a backie, totally wrong. She spent the entire time telling me how her mum always used to tell her how dangerous they were and would go mad if she ever caught her doing it. When we got back Helen looked rather nackered, my feet were freezing cold because I'd done it in jandals. We spent a little while wandering around town and then left to head off to Kaikoura. Helen and Pat made the most of their bed in the den and laid up there for the whole journey, Rich listened to his iPod and Coops and I had a chat in the front.

We arrived in Kaikoura and bought some mince from Four Square for spag bol. We parked up in the freedom parking zone, on the way in there was a sign 'slow sperm whale', the speed bump was in the shape of a whale. I parked the camper with one back wheel on the curb to flatten it off a bit. The girls and I went for a wander along the beach, which is nothing but grey stones and pebbles, making it hard to walk on. A while down the beach we spotted a rather old looking dog which kept barking at stones. It followed us all the way along the beach and back to the camper, which looked like an absolute retard had parked it, so after Coops had fed Scruff a buscuit we drove to another spot that was a little flatter to park. We parked up along side another camper who decided to drive off 2 minutes later to another spot about 20 metres away, I don't think they were too impressed. Helen cooked us a spag-bol which was awesome. I spent the evening watching Scruff wandering around and then watched Spiderman 3.