The day after our Queen Charlotte tramp we met up with Bob Hubert for lunch. We met Bob at Norfolk Island, where he showed us around. He was crewing for Southern Princess at the time. Bob picked us up and we went for a v good meal at the Highfield Estate vineyard, which is up in a barren hilly area of Marlborough, near to Wither Hills - quite unlike the verdant pastures around Picton. We were very impressed with the wine we tasted and bought some Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc for enjoying later - we were driving later that afternoon, so couldn't drink more than a glass with lunch.

It was great to see Bob again and he gave us lots of tips of things to do and places to visit. We arranged to meet up again when we returned north.

We left Picton later that afternoon on our way to Kaikoura. We stopped for the night at Seddon, which is well known for its sea salt. Seddon itself was rather unprepossessing though. The drive next day to Kaikoura was very attractive with good views of the coastline and snow-topped mountains on the other side of the road. We stopped once to watch a large seal colony lounging on the rocks and playing in the water. We stopped again to buy two freshly caught crayfish for supper (they were delicious). Kaikoura means - Kai =3D eat , koura =3D lobster/crayfish. The coast has the right rocky ledges with lots of kelp that lobster like and is famous for them, as well as for the whales that frequent this coastline.

Kaikoura was pretty busy, but we managed to find a campsite. The following day we took a long walk around the peninsula - the views of the limestone pavements and rocky outcrops were fantastic and we saw many seals and sea birds. We didn't see any whales, although we didn't want to pay to go on a whale watching trip as we had seen such good displays of humpback whales in New Caledonia.

We left next morning heading south towards Queenstown, where we planned to spend the New Year.