Royals On Holiday: Christchurch to Oamaru

Picked up the campervans without incident. Chris Coaster is from Rolleston and his owner kindly picked us up and delivered us to the bus. From there, after gathering some supplies we travelled toward Oamaru and Riverstone Kitchen for an amazing degustation meal. Travelling through Canterbury you can see how dry the poor place is and windy as. Lynda (me) was freaking out a bit as the bus we are in was being blown across the rumble strip by huge gusts of wind. Got ourselves to Top 10 Oamaru to sleep off the food and up in the morning for a look around the old historic precinct, some yummy breakfast at Tees Street cafe and a drive out to the penguin colony (minus the penguins - they depart at sunrise.) A highlight was artist Donna Demente's gallery, Whitestone Artists' Collective and Grainstore Gallery, in the historic precinct in Oamaru - crazy, gorgeous and very well priced. It's such a shame that we don't have any of the preserved history in Tauranga that they have here in Oamaru. Much like other new world cities, ironically it is poverty that has kept the history intact as there was no money to replace them, now they are irreplaceable. Another highlight was the foraging for some wild watercress - not the first we have subsequently found. You'd never find this much watercress in a creek in town in the North Island. Oh, and it's really cold! After months of sleeping on top of the bed and sweating all night, the temps have plummeted for us here - must be below zero for sure! Well, at least 10 deg or under overnight. Brrr..