Day 5

– Mt Cook back towards Chch, sleeping in Timaru. This morning we got up early feeling hugely better for a night in a proper bed and some good 'communication' yesterday (read, arguing and clarifying what we want from this holiday). It is still pouring with rain and we can't see the mountain. Ah well. We packed up, got Noam and Salit's itinerary, and said our goodbyes. We drove like the clappers down to Twizel, Omarama (saw a glider world rally about to start, thankfully they're off to Wanaka when we're there) and then down to Oamaru where we stopped for lunch. The Lake Aviemore / Lake Waitaki valley was incredibly windy and altho' the rain died down we were doing some pretty rough steering to keep our van on the road. Altho' the lakes were beautiful (more of that bright turquoise coloured stuff), it was mostly livestock and lines of trees forming wind-breaks. We stopped to buy some fabulous strawberries in a little hand-packing farm building. Yumellicious! Then on to Oamaru where we had sticky buns, pies and carbo overdose for lunch in a bakery. Then into a sweet kiddies' store where Zack met Santa, had our photo taken and picked up some farm animal toys for Zack (a hit), some sunglasses (a novelty) & some light-weight sandals (which he isn't sure of).