Things are picking up...

I just took out some of the whining bits of my last entry. I was complaining about not meeting folks. As soon as I was done I got into a lovely conversation with the cafe owner, who ended up inviting us to stay on her 300 acre land for free! What a trip.
The next day, as we were about to head south down the Pacific coast highway, I struck up a conversation with my favorite cafe server dude and he and his friend talked us into heading over to the East Coast and going down that way, along the Tasman Sea. Well, that was a very good thing. We ran into beautiful weather and have seen really wonderful sights. Actually, that was our original plan and we only changed it after hitting that freezing weather in Wellington. Today we visited a seal colony and pet a big goat we met out in the middle of nowhere, we toured an old gold mining camp (an attraction run by the original mining family there) where we got to walk along the ore cart tracks through actual mine shafts. That was amazing (a bit scary too). Then we saw the famous 'pancake rocks' and blow holes. It's funny how you see a little photo of some attraction and think, hmmm, will that be worth a stop? Well, usually here they are. Lonely Planet has been very helpful today.
Now we're getting our photo cards put onto cd. Krista's was actually full--a first! We're in a little town called Greymouth, which is the biggest town on the whole West Coast.
It's a bit like California here, without any people. We were sitting in a cafe overlooking the highway--the only highway North-South, and I realized we were seeing a car maybe every 5 to 10 minutes. Jeez.
Tonight we'll get down to Hotitaka and then on to the Glaciers tomorrow.
We had good news from Kaytea. She flies into Christchurch on Monday. By having rearanged our itinerary, she'll get to tour the city there with us, then we'll go up for the whale watching. Way cool.
So all is good and we're on the right track. I feel such gratitude to the cafe fellow who nudged us over to this coast. I've got his picture posted, by the way, under the title 'double shot'.
love
rob