Woke up early on a very frosty Thursday, had a huge breakfast and drove into see the town. Hanmer Springs developed around a large thermal springs complex where people would go for health reasons. These types of spa towns pop up all over the world wherever there are thermal springs, and used to attract wealthy sick people before the advent of real medicine, when cancer, heart disease and pretty much anything was thought to be curable by drinking hot spring water. Although the medicinal function has long since disappeared, they generally retain a genteel upper crust aura. Not Hanmer Springs. The "spa" was a series of wooden huts, and the surrounding town was just one step up from trailer park. So we decided to skip spa treatments and continue our journey south.

49. Hanmer Springs

Braemer Lodge is heaps more rustic and traditional than Paratiho. It felt (and looked) like you were staying at someone's house, because well, you were. That's not necessarily a good thing, as it could easily get creepy since it was just us at the lodge, a 10% occupancy rate. The room was very plain, and the main room and dining room was really the owners' (Paddy and Adele) living and dining rooms. Adele did the cooking and talking (lots of both) while Paddy mostly watched TV and didn't talk much, although Adele didn't give him much of an opportunity either. We arrived at about 4 pm, and as you can see hit the sport circuit, then went for a good very filling dinner and lots of wine. After dinner we tried playing a game called Cathedral, but it was either too boring or we were too drunk, so we gave up and went to bed.

We kept driving through the bleak, hilly terrain that as usual was totally empty. The road later began to hug the coast, which was also bleak but in a good way, strong waves, dark cloudy skies and black sand beaches. Just north of Kaikoura we stopped to look at a seal colony along the road, but the seals were pretty lazy, just sunning themselves. Kaikoura is the main whale viewing spot in New Zealand, but Somchai wasn't into it, mostly due to his propensity to puke on ships. So we just stopped for lunch at a not very good seafood restaurant, and kept driving for another two hours until we reached our next hotel, Braemer Lodge at Hanmer Springs.