26/05/2018 - We have a mission

This difficult moment when you have to take off your warm socks to put on flip-flops. The cold season requires many challenges - like going to the showers.
Winter has now arrived in "Blenheim" - ground frost. During breakfast we saw New Zealand news reporting a surprising winter outbreak. Snowfall and icy roads caused chaos in the country. Reason enough for us to go to a shopping center to prepare ourselves accordingly. With a blanket and gloves for Tobi, we are ready for the winter outbreak. Or something like that.
After shopping, we made a stop at "Mount Vernon". The mountain is located just outside of Blenheim and reportedly offers a nice view from the top. We put together an individually chosen route and started hiking. At the beginning, we went through a green valley and several sheep pastures. When we turned towards the summit, there was only one inclination: uphill! We climbed the mountain within 40 minutes, sometimes more steeply and sometimes less steeply. From the top, we had a great view of Blenheim and the surrounding area. High, snow-covered mountains could be seen in the distance, and on the opposite side, the endless sea.
While climbing up, we noticed an approaching rain front. It was getting closer, so we soon headed down the main hiking trail into the valley. Another German backpacker joined us. His road trip is just beginning. His upcoming route will take him past the glaciers on the west coast to the south. Respect for that - temperatures on site no longer exceed double digits. Road closures must be expected at any time! Of course, we gave him various excursion tips and wish him the same enjoyment of his time as we had.
Now the nearby supermarket was our next destination. This time we did not buy refrigerated items because our upcoming accommodation has no refrigeration facilities. In return, the campground at "Marfells Beach" offers a beautiful rear window view.

This is already our second stay at this beach. The first time we liked it here very much because of the location as well as the cheap overnight price!

When we parked the car, Tobi wrote on the blog and I explored the area through the camera lens.
After dinner, we snuggled under the blankets, watched saved documentaries on the phone, and fell asleep to the sound of the sea.

The day greeted us with low positive temperatures. But thanks to the second new blanket, it was comfortable in the car. After breakfast, we headed to "Cape Campbell Lighthouse". However, the lighthouse was not our primary goal, but a rugged rocky landscape. During our last visit, we unexpectedly found something here. Large, glowing "Paua Shells" were scattered on the beach. Since we liked the shells particularly well and had a lot of fun searching for them, we returned here. The first success took a long time. It took over 20 minutes until we found living specimens. Since killing living Paua Shells is strictly prohibited in the region and not our intention, we continued to search for abandoned shells. Well hidden under a stone, I found the first lifeless snail shell after another 15 minutes. From then on, we discovered many more Paua Shells between the rocks and under the sand-shell-mud mixture. In the end, there were about ten Paua Shells in the bag. Whether they will pass our quality check remains to be seen later.
Armed with the finds, we continued our journey by car. We went to "Kaikoura" - once again ... Actually, we had already finished with the coastal town. But we returned here because of a special matter ...