round Kaikoura town there is plenty to see and do. Take the road to the beacon on Point Keane at the road's end about 1.5 kilometres east of the town. This takes you past pocket-sized sandy beaches, large areas of rugged rocks and a tiny lagoon. At low tide, the many exposed sand patches and rocky pools provide good pickings for herons, shags and waders. White-faced herons stalk up and down in their pedantic manner, golden plovers, godwits, turnstones and other waders quarter the exposed sand, while at the lagoon there is usually a resident pair of paradise duck together with mallards, pied stilts and dotterels.

In spring the rocks opposite Point Keane bustle with the comings and goings of the thousands of nesting red-billed and black-backed gulls and white-fronted tems. Fur seals also haul out on the rocks in large numbers in the winter, and there are usually a few bachelor bulls to be seen most times of the year.

Two kilometres south from Kaikoura on State Highway 1 are the Maori Leap Caves - limestone caverns carved from the cliffs by subterranean streams. These are noted for their stalactites and stalagmites but also contain fossilised bones of penguins and seals. Also near Kaikoura is one of the two known mainland colonies of giant weta and one of the most attractive of our endemic plants, a native tree broom, Chordospartium stevensonii, found now in only a few localities, one being in coastal gullies north of Kaikoura.

The ranges inland are worth exploring and can be reached by taking the road north from Hanmer Springs, which is 140 kilometres south-west of Kaikoura, off State Highway 70. Hanmer Springs is a small resort town and the last settlement of any size for quite some distance, so if you are taking the road north stock up here.

From Hanmer the road moves into the Awatere River Valley just past Molesworth Station and will eventually bring you out agam on the coast just north of Seddon, 137 kilometres from Hanmer. This road is difficult and can be blocked by snow in winter so check before venturing onto it.

Molesworth Station itself is huge - 180,000 hectares of crown land made up of several sheep stations that were resumed and amalgamated by the government in the 1930s. At the time of this resumption the whole area was in very poor condition because of over-grazing by sheep and infestation by rabbits. Pasture improvement and pest control has since benefited this area greatly.

Around Molesworth Station is a vast expanse of tussock and grassland, picturesquely set between the Inland Kaikouras and the Spenser Mountains. Among its highlights are the mountain valleys of the Waiau, Clarence, Rainbow and Wairau rivers with their mixture of beech forests and tussocklands. Lake Tennyson, set like a deep blue sapphire among the golden tussock and moraine wetlands, is also worth visiting.

From Molesworth north the road for almost its entire distance runs alongside the Awatere River at the foot of the Inland Kaikouras. Contrary to first appearances these mountains support a wide variety of life. Vegetable sheep abound at the higher altitudes and from a distance it is easy to see how these white and woolly plants get their name. Much more uncommon is Hebe ramossissima, which has been collected from only three sites in the Kaikouras.

One of the most recent reptile discoveries in New Zealand was a gecko, collected in the Inland Kaikouras. Known as the black-eyed gecko, this animal lives among the tussock and scrub in rocky, alpine areas.