It wasn’t quite that easy to leave in the morning. We said good bye for a good while and sat in the warm kitchen, having coffee and not actually leaving. It was starting to rain and a rainbow appeared over Timmy which looked very pretty.

When everybody had left for school, kindy and work, we also left. Today, we went up the coast to the Moeraki boulders. These boulders are fun, spherical boulders lying around at the beach. It’s a geological oddity but it makes for very pretty photos.

A new restaurant and an alpaka farm have opened right next to the beach access now which I hadn’t seen before. After lunch in the motorhome, we took a walk along the beach before heading up to Oamaru. One more stop at All Day bay for a coffee and some beach time. Then, it was time for Oamaru where we stayed the night at a park over place next to the race track. It was very convenient to stay in town. Also, we arrived early enough to have time for another BBQ.

The next day, the weather was still very grey and drizzling. The small bakery shop in Oamaru was still a must, Flo and I had been here before. They were still setting up so we waited for more, still warm, baked goodness to arrive. Apart from bread, we also bought sweet treats for a later coffee time.

Exploring Oamaru’s historic town center was fun. The i-site/museum wasn’t quite the plan but it started raining and the ladies at the counter kinda talked us into it. It was much fun to try out old toys, have a ride on the penny farthing carussell or have a look around the old shops. The schoolroom was a good reminder of the horrible practises that had been used to keep kids from fidgeting.

Leaving Oamaru, we turned inland. Driving up the Waitaki valley, we stopped next to a hydrostation and a dam. It was still raining quite heavily and wasn’t much fun to go out. In the end, we made this a long driving day, driving almost all the way up to Twizel today. We stopped at a lake right before the town of Twizel and stayed at the edge of the plateau above Lake Ruataniwha on a freedom camp.