Day 9 - Kaikoura

We had breakfast at Vic's again (this time I had the porridge) and went to see a "legendary" minigolf course Nick had suggested, named after the movie Caddyshack.  It was
indeed one of the most elaborate and prettiest minigolf courses I'd seen, it was indoors and had a considerable amount of automation, including a river, a rollercoaster
track that lifted your ball, and a gondola system on one hole.  It was, however, a little bit beyond the ability of everyone but Nick, and he finished over par by 7, with
the rest of us 10 or more strokes behind him.

Noon found us at the winery that we had missed earlier, and we sampled several wines, all of which were delicious.  We had originally planned to have lunch there, but they
were booked full.  We bought some wine, debated whether Texas would let us take it back, and headed north to Kaikoura for the night.  We ran a little low on gas after
coming upon several closed gas stations, but eventually got some before the situation got too dire.  We arrived in Kaikoura about 2 pm, and had some lunch (which was once
again somewhat underwhelming) and went to our accomodations, which were a pleasant cabin near the beach, an attachment of the local potter's larger house. We settled in 
there for a bit before heading to the supermarket to pick up some food for dinner, which we cooked at the apartment.  Then we headed down to the beach, where we found 
actual sand, although a very rough basaltic sand.

Still covered in scrapes from the previous day, I found the water extremely unpleasant, as a sand blast came with every wave, on top of the cold water and salt on my wounds.
We walked for some way, examining stones, most of which were basalt, with some occasional whitish limestone and low-quality nephrite.  We saw very little in the way of shells,
although we did find one large, glossy shell.  We sat by the crashing ocean for a bit, then headed back to our rooms to read.  Nick went out later, and reported that the 
stars were extremely gorgeous, but in all we retired early, as we had to get up early for the ferry the next day.