Wednesday 16th Dec
After breakfast we said good bye to Darryl as he was heading west then Craig and I set off heading east it was cold, wet and did not look good for the next few days. After about 25miles I said good bye to Craig and set off to Kaikoura and he back south to Oamaru. I was Hoping to get a trip on one of the whale watching boats, but on arrival found out they were fully booked for the next few days and they may not even go out due to the weather. As the weather was not good I decided to find a place to stay, warm up and update the blog and make a plan for tomorrow.

Thursday 17th Dec
Had a good ride to Nelson it started out wet and cold but dried up. The coast road was fun although there was a major traffic jam, it took forever to get past, there must of been at least 10 cars. Once in Nelson I checked out the New Zealand Classic Motorcycle Museum Quite a good collection of well preserved and restored bikes all belonging to one man. And people say I have to many. Some of the bikes had a small barcode label on them and they also had free WiFi and an app for your phone, you could scan the barcode on a bike and read the story about the bike. Later I found a cheap Backpackers and before heading in to town for a wander around I booked the ferry for tomorrow.

Friday 18th Dec
I was awake early but did not get up till late, I was booked on the afternoon ferry back to the North Island. It was a short ride sunshine all the way and of course the usual twisty roads with little to no traffic. I reached Picton with time to spare so had some lunch before getting on the ferry. There was only 2 other bikers on the Ferry and I ended up chatting with Bob for most of the trip which made the crossing seem a lot quicker. We were first on and first off of the ferry so not to much waiting around on the car deck and the Wellington rush hour was a breeze, It was quite warm although getting late I rode for about 60miles before deciding to stop as the temperature was now  beginning to drop, I ended up in a small town called Levin and have pitched my tent at the local motor camp.