Tuesday travelling down the coast.
An early start and off to the seal sanctuary or was it colony. About fifteen minutes down the road from where we were camping was a seal colony so off we set to investigate. The seals, sensibly, were a fifteen minute walk away from the main beach up onto the cliffs we strolled and were rewarded with the sight of an adult  seal basking and then as we looked more closely, it is apparent that seals are awfully good at camouflage, we saw several more lurking in the shadows, and for our patience we were treated to the sight of several one month old cubs cavorting amongst the rocks. As someone said the more you looked the more you saw.
The coast itself is marvellous and after the seals we set off to drive south. We stopped at pancake rocks which were a geological marvel and then headed off into Greymouth because we had not got the expedition's communications officer a new SIM card. Apparently these are very hard to come by in New Zealand, especially if you want a NZ telecom one. No one in Picton sold them , the next day was Sunday and on Monday we couldn't purchase one in Westport. Is it as hard to get a BT is card in Launceston , I ask myself?
We found the telecom shop in Greymouth , more by luck the judgement, it looked nothing like a shop, had no displays in the window and was tastefully signed "Telecom", in what I thought were quite small letters. The deal was done with haste the card purchased and the requisite number of dollars put onto it. The young lady who helped us was charm personified and was extremely helpful. She checked our phone would work on the Telecom system before selling us a card, installed the sim and put the dollars onto it for us. Who could ask for more?
After the thrills of the telecom shop we were off on the open highway again, stopping at Hokitika for the night, where we at a in the late afternoon sunshine and read for a while. A morsel of NZ steak for tea accompanied by a glass of NZ Pinot Noir, who could ask for more. A close inspection of the stars and an examination of the Milky Way before bed ended a really wonderful day.