We slept on a motel car park near wellington the night before our ferry journey which was very cheap (7 pounds per person) and the camper had electricity and we got to use the jacuzzi and the pool at the motel! good hey! we got up pretty early for our ferry journey at 8.25am Becky was so excited because she loves boats! Ash got a little stressed driving to ferry terminal becuase he never believes Beckys navigating skills but she has got us to everywhere we needed to get only using free tourist maps! The ferry journey was amazing we got to see abit of Wellington on the way out of port which looked very nice and we had a cheap full english brekkie, which Ash has been craving since we left England because he knew he couldn't get one anywhere, was really nice though. We had a relaxing journey, slept a bit and saw the amazing scenery on the way, lots of towering hilly islands, which was so breathtaking!

we decided to drive straight down the number 1 highway to Kaikoura to do whalewatching first instead of last after we looked at the map and noticed the distances. The drive was amazing, beautiful scenery and beachs along the way along with countless vineyards. Becky had been looking forward to this part of the trip as it was the thing she wanted to do the most in NZ. So we found a campsite parked up and pretty much headed straight to the whale watching place at 4pm, it cost us $310 for both of us which is proberbly the most expensive thing we have done so far but it was worth it in Becky's eyes because the boat was fast and rocking all over the place (much to Becky's delight, she loves rough seas - weirdo!) we saw the largest bird in the world an albatros, dolphins and a massive 18 metre sperm whale which was resting on the surface breathing for a while and then it sunk down to feed, we saw the iconic tail in the air and everything, see the photos. Becky thought It was a much more relaxing experience than any of the extreme sports Ash had talked her into so far! We were out on the boat for a few hours so we decided to skip food and go out drinking instead, we found this cool bar with live music and lovely cocktails and local beers called the Strawberry Tree and we stayed in there all night as there was live music, it was full of British even the people that worked there, it is quite a shock seeing so many British people around when we went for weeks without seeing one in the US!

The next day we did some food shopping, wandered round the shops, had lunch, and sank a few more beers, walked the beach and made a little wall hanging for our van out of pebbles (Ash's mum would be proud!) before going back to camp to watch Shutter Island on the camp communal TV. Kaikoura is a lovely and beautiful town, we love that in NZ people walk around with no shoes on but we started asking eachother, how do people live here and not get bored?! There is nothing in town except tourist shops, over priced clothes and pubs, Christchurch is quite a drive away! We are starting to think we like the great outdoors but like to have a cinema and shops close too for where we want to live! You need stuff to do on rainy days!