Day 294 (Fri 27 Apr) - Picton

Another wet day. Caught a bus to the Airport to pick our new campervan from the Backpackers rental company. The same parent company dealt with two other companies Maui and Britz. As we waited to be shown our vehicle we worked out that the Maui campervans where for the upper class, rich travellers; the Britz campervans were for the middle of the range travellers and the backpackers were for the cheapskates who didn't care how old and tatty their vehicle were as long as they went.

We were shown our backpacker vehicle which was a 4 berth campervan which would be our (and Jo's Mum, Ruth, and Keith) home for the next two weeks. We were shown how to the empty the toilet (gross - we agreed that we would not be using that!) and how other parts worked, all of which we promptly forgot. Sarb was keen to point out that it was a Merc and this was the first time we'd ever driven one.

It was still raining as we left Christchurch on the way to Picton. We both tried out driving the van as we made our way back up the coast. It felt like we were driving a truck but we had no mishaps on the way.

Five hours later we arrived in Picton. Checked into the Picton caravan park and walked into town to get dinner from the supermarket.

On the way back we stopped off at the friendly scottish pub.

Sarb cooked up some tasty lamb and mint sausages while Jo made friends with a cat who was keen to shelter from the rain.

As we prepared to make up the bed the cat got rather too comfortable and Jo would have let it stay the night but Sarb firmly persuaded her otherwise. In the main by kicking the cat out.