Lake Bruener & Lewis Pass

For the last couple of nights I've been traveling to the east coast again. Arthur's pass took me onto the west coast and then I came back over Lewis pass after staying by lake Bruener. Lewis pass brings me further north onto the east coast.

On my way I stopped a night at Hanmer Springs which is a small town based on the natural hot springs. They are set up as a few (8?) Pools so that you can bathe in different temperatures. I must admit the hot pools were very welcome as my muscles were still very sore after the Mueller Hut trail!

After Hanmer I made my way to Kaikoura. I decided to stop in the mountains for the night but at around 11:00pm the winds really picked up and since I was looking over a ravine I didn't feel too comfortable staying there. The van was rocking from the strong winds coming up from the valley. Anyway I decided to make my way towards the coast and ended up staying on Kaikoura's south beach. There were a load of other camper vans there so I felt that the spot was good. Little beknownst to me that there was a line squall brewing out at sea and it was heading landwards! The storm came in about 1:00am and made a heck of a racket. I decided to put in the earplugs and ignore it (since I wouldn't be blown off a cliff, being near the coast line).
Yesterday I left Kaikoura as the weather was so bad that I was unable to do any whale watching. A real shame as Kaikoura is famous for these thing. Anyway I'm pretty much done with touring the south island as the weather is getting progressively worse as winter rolls on.

Today I'm in Picton and have a ferry booked for Wellington at mid-day. So later today I'll be on the North Island and hopefully the weather will be a bit warmer as I travel north!