HAPPY BIRTHDAY MONSTER

As the Monster already posted, we had a marathon day yesterday driving from Wanaka to Kaikoura. We took it in turns to drive (5 hours each) along twisty, winding roads that were often bordered by a steep cliff edge on one side. It was so nice to get back to Kaikoura. It is a beautiful place. The room in the White Morph Motel wasn't as nice as our first room, we mightn't have liked it so much if we had stayed there first off. It made it easier to leave this morning. We got a great welcome in the White Morph Restaurant. They wanted to hear all about our adventures and asked if we had met the rich dairy farmers. They had their Christmas decorations up and it looked very festive. Today is the Monster's birthday, and unfortunately we spent most of it travelling. The weather in the South Island was hot and sunny, about 23 degrees. It is the first time the Monster has had a hot sunny day on her birthday and it is the first day off she has had on her birthday for a while (excluding weekends). We popped out to the seal colony before we left Kaikoura and lots of seals came over to say happy birthday. It was lovely. Then we hopped in Yari for the last leg of our journey in that wonderful car. It took about two hours to Picton, which makes 3400km we have travelled in Yari since getting the car on the 12th November. It took 3 hours to cross to the North Island, Wellington being our port of call. The crossing was fine, but they had the world's most boring television programmes on to entertain us. Wellington is very different to what we have encountered before. It is a big city, much more like a European city and very populated. We have probably seen more people tonight than we have in our entire stay in the South Island. I prefer the south island so far. We managed to get rooms in a swanky hotel (got a last minute cancellation thank God) and we are both feeling really tired. On to Auckland tomorrow. We'll leave early in the morning because it is another 10 hour drive, but probably on motorways and stuff rather than twisty roads.