There was a horrible noise from my pillow at 7am, and it took me a while to work out that it was the alarm clock. Knowing we had to get up early meant I hadn't slept properly so I was dozy and grumpy. But I took the opportunity of being up early to phone home without waking anyone (yay!) and Mikey and I set off for Christchurch.

As we left the hostel, the sun was just shining on the mist in the bay and the light was an odd and beautiful combination of gold and purple. I waved and pointed it out to Mikey and a bus stopped for me, thinking I was flagging it down. One day I'll learn to keep my enthusiasm slightly more stationary.

We are finally heading north, so I can navigate again, but Mikey had already looked at the map and knew where to go. I compensated by reading out funny place names (Dog Kennel, Barryville, Bennytown) and Mikey thought that Shag Point would be worth a look. It was down a tiny track and past a few houses and there was a nature reserve at the end of it. A large sealion was sunning himself on a rock. We drove all the way to the end of the world and I suggested that Mikey didn't turn the car engine off because this would not be a good place for the car not to start. Unfortunately, it turns out I only said it in my head, and Mikey still hasn't really got his telepathy working, so guess what happened? At 9.30 on a Monday morning, at the end of the road, the car's battery died. Which I though was very funny. 'Specially as I'd warned him...

Mikey wanted to go into the little village and knock on doors which was horrible but probably the only way we'd get to Christhurch before midnight. I thought walking to the road, about five miles away, would be better and less likely to disturb people. We went with Mikey's way. Shag Point isn't a big place and there was only one house with a car outside it. Mikey knocked on the door of a house that looked as if it had no car at all, while I stood and mocked him from afar. And as soon as I heard him ask for jump leads, not a jump-start, I knew what would happen. The old man hobbled down stairs, opened his garage door where a tiny blue car (numberplate SHAG PT) lived, emptied out everything from the boot of the car and solemnly handed Mikey a tiny set of leads. I have to admit that I mocked him excessively as we continued our search for a car.

This time I walked along the road ready to flag down a car while Mikey took the track past the houses. As soon as I did so, and with perfect timing, a car came round the corner. Oh, how we laughed. I stopped the car, Mikey scrambled up the verge, and the grumpy man ('Oh, that's right at the end of the road!') gave us a lift in the back of his van. Seeing bundles of letters and newspapers everywhere, I made an incredible logical leap. 'You;re a postman!' I said, which was greeted by a raised eyebrow. But I was happy, I'd always wanted to ride in a postvan.

The car started with no trouble at all, and I returned the jumpleads to the old man while his wife stared at the strangers from the balcony.

Back on the road to Christchurch I noticed, on my now-redundant map, a sign for 'Moeraki Boulders'. Mikey's not quite as excited about rocks as I am and was reluctant to risk the car not starting just to see some stones but I insisted (hadn't I found someone to fix his car?) and I reassured him, out loud, this time, that the car would be fine. We walked down to the beach andsaw something quite remarkable:

These were huge, almost spherical boulders in the sea. The sign by them said that they took about four million years to be formed, a bit like a peral in an oyster, when a bit of sand or grit is surounded by more sand or grit. They are concretions, not proper rocks, if that means anything. To me they were just giant alien eggs that would take another couple of million years to hatch.

After all that excitement we came straight to Christchurch, found the hostel and then wandered round the town. We had a successful shopping trip, took seven films in to be developed, found a restaurant for supper (excellent lamb) and then went back to the hostel. I had developed a migraine over the evening, but my magic fizzy-good-feel-nice tablet did its job and I was fast alseep in minutes.