Hokitika, a cool little town (to use their words!)

This morning we woke to find a police infringement notice with a $200 dollar fine under our windscreen wipers! Nice of them to knock to see whether we were in fact illegally parked. The freedom camping rules in NZ are complicated but we are in a self contained vehicle so should have been fine.

After thinking we were going to have to argue our case and probably appeal in writing we drove to the council offices where a nice lady (who seemed to know exactly who we were) said don't worry, already been sorted and we've cancelled the notice. It seems our rental company were at fault as we didn't have the right certificate in the front windscreen. The kind lady printed us a certificate off and we went on our way ... if only bureaucracy worked this well in England!

We then drove down the coast to Hokitka. They call themselves a cool little town and it was pretty cute with a few things to do. Booked ourselves on to the Franz Josef Glacier walk for tomorrow and thought we'd stay overnight. The weather was pretty rubbish but we decided to go for a very windy and hard run on the beach ... pic of Fred afterwards.

After a shower and visiting the local glow worm caves we went to the pub in town before dinner. Saw a cool blues band in a very local pub ... most of the men were in wellies. One of them enquired about Andy's moccasins ... he seemed rather perplexed!