HEADING NORTH

SUNDAY 22nd MAY

  Well I didn't wake up until 11.00am, which was earlier than Scott.  I wasn't at my chirpiest, my back was sore, the head ached and generally all was not right with the world.  Scott got me down to the bus station in time to catch the 12.50pm coach which got into Hornby on the outskirsts of Christchurch at 6.30pm.  On the way we stopped at Oamarau which was bathed in sunshine, and I took the opportunity to get a sandwich and some chips down me washed down by a mug of tea. I then took a short stroll down towards the sea and back.

  A minibus picked us up at Hornby and was set to deliver three passangers to the airport.  I asked the driver  if he was going via Roydvale Avenue and if so if she could drop me off at the Aarburg Airport Motel.  This proved to be no problem, and I checked in about 7.00pm, albeit my back was in a really bad way.  I couldn't even summon the energy to go out and get something to eat.  I watched a documentary about Moko the wild bluenosed dolphin, whose rotting carcass was found on a beach on Matakana Island, a couple of years after he had become a sensastion in Mahia Beach afrer rescuing two stranded pygmy sperm whales in 2008.

  I then decided to go to bed, however both the beds in the room were extremely narrow, and the slightest movement was liable to leave one prone to fall out of the bed.  In addition my right groin was giving me grief so what with that and the back I don't reckon I got much sleep.  About 11.15pm my old moble went off.  By the time I got out of bed and located the phone, it had gone off.  The call registered as being from the Amersham Club, and it would have been about midday Monday local time.  I didn't ring back but collapsed back into bed to continue my restless night.