The rain has let up and the sun is beginning to set behind the mountains above us, turning the clouds over the steel grey sea every shade of pink and lavender.

The beach at Kekerengu is black volcanic sand with a sprinkling of stones in every shade of grey.

Then, like marshmallows on top of hot cocoa is a smattering of the whitest, smoothest stones you can imagine. They feel, on the outside, like the hard shell of a Mentos candy and they are without any roughness at all. What looks like little clumps of red sea lettuce wash ashore with every whipped-cream-white wave that breaks against the sand, lodging between what look like the tentacles of giant kraken, but are really enormous piles of broad leaved seaweed that lay in tangled piles between the bones of old driftwood.

There are seals posing on the mud brown rocks that have been waiting for millennia just a fifty yards out. Their sounds are drowned by the waves, but their unmistakable scent finds the shore. We saw one, dead and bloated, washed up on the sand several miles back as we drove along the ocean. They are more fun to watch frolic, like puppies, in the shallow surf along the gentle curve of this long stretch of coast.

I mentioned to Tony, as we wended our way south between high hills, picturesquely decorated with cattle and sheep, each one artfully positioned as if by postcard design, that this stretch of the coast reminds me a lot of the Adriatic Coast of Italy. Specifically the stretch between Ravenna and Chioggia, just after one makes the big left hand bend towards the south, past Venice. Ocean to our left and vineyards as far as the eye can see, in both places. We cycled that stretch, in the shadow of aubergine mountains, and when the sun is just right, the pebbled beaches of this island in the deep south of Oceania are reminiscent of their Italian cousins.

The children spent the afternoon dragging logs up and down the beach, creating big fort like constructions on the rocks. The boys have been hard into an army game recently, which entails us carting around big chunks of wood that they’ve decided are shaped like guns. At every opportunity they dig trenches and build embankments out of whatever materials present themselves and then fire away at one another like the poor, testosterone poisoned fellows that they are. Hannah built a high peaked building that was dubbed “the hospital” and we heard Ezra shouting that whoever was dead could go see her to be reinstated. If only it was that easy in real life.

We’re making pizzas, with the secondary benefit of heating up the camper with our little gas oven.

The children are watching the movie that seemed like a good idea when the rain started to fall hard. The front bench seat of the camper transforms nicely to a theater, with the middle child holding the computer on his lap. Tony and I are working our way, steadily, through a litre and a half of hard cider called “Scrumpy.” Just saying the name makes me happy.

Our favourite part of New Zealand, so far, has been the free camping. The little places in the middle of nowhere where an appropriately fitted out camper can tuck in and spend an isolated afternoon and evening. The east coast of the South Island appears to be littered with such hidden gems, and we’re dedicating ourselves to sampling as many as possible.