Joya Garden & Villa Studios Nelson

We caught bits and pieces of the news from the States and I'm so saddened by the 4 officers who were shot and so relieved that they caught the suspect. We are at Nelson Airport, checked in at the counter by a woman from Rochester NY who saw a National Geographic special 23yrs ago about NZ and decided to move here-she works for Air New Zealand now! We have about 2hrs before our flight to ...

... the boat and kept juping out of the water, it was really lovely. I didn't manage to get any photo's though because they were too flippin quick!
We were dropped on Awaroa beach at 10.30 and told to meet the boat at 3.45 an hour orso's walk away. By this time it was raining and the thought fo all them hours in the middle of nowhere was not great! We walked to a small lodge which had a cafe' and had a drink and weighed up our ...

... the tour would normally work with the kayak trip in the morning followed by the walk and the water taxi ride back to base, but in the winter they do it the other way round which worked out quite well as it was quite cold in the morning and we weren't feeling up to putting wetsuit on straight away. The water taxi ride to the start of the walk was a bit of a bumpy one and a fair distance but there was some good views on the ...

Mir wird aber auch einfach nicht langweilig. Es gibt ja immer etwas zu tun. Am Sonntag waren wir bei einem Kartrennen. Dort hat Ian in einem Erste-Hilfe-Fahrzeug gesessen und auf Kundschaft gewartet. Kam aber keiner. Maria und ich haben Abgase geschnueffelt und versucht, die Rasenmaehermotorengeraeusche nachzuahmen. Wir waren beide schlecht und ich war froh, dass mich hier keiner kennt. Montag war nichts. Dienstag abend sind Rolf und Joachim zum Essen gekommen. Rolf ...

... campsite. We went out for tea at this
place that turned out to be a bit too pricey but nevermind, it was a
treat. When we got back to the campsite Nick spotted someone who he
had met on the Abel Tasman track so he chatted for a bit before the
guy needed to go make food. We got into the van and relaxed for a
while before having an early night as we had to check in for our
ferry to the North Island no later than 7am.

... spit. Farewell Spit is a 35 km long, narrow spit of sand which stretches round Golden Bay, almost embracing it. The windswept seaward side was really good to walk along and we came upon a big fur seal which was resting and scratching on the beach. Much of the spit is too low lying to be visible to ships especially at high water. The lighthouse near the end was finished in 1870 and there is a heart-warming story about one lighthouse keeper who kept bringing 2 bags of ...

We have spent over a week in Nelson so far and are really enjoying it. It is supposed to the be Sun capital of New Zealand so the weather has been pretty nice for us. Rained a few days but other then that we have spent our fair share of time around the pool and at the beach. The beaches here are like Parksville beach.... they go on for miles. We bought a frisbee a few weeks ago and its the best $15 we ...

... went, jumping about and turning blue, much to the amusement of the people sitting on the beach in their fleeces and coats! It was actually invigorating but after 20 minutes we had to admit defeat and sat on the beach thawing out until the boat came to take us back. We spent the evening relaxing, eating pizza and drinking wine and beer which was lovely. When we left, we were sad to go as Megan and Mark had been great hosts and we had a brilliant time.

We are staying on tonight as well so we have a leisurely start. The normal campground routine is to be out and away by 10 am. There are lots of activities available here, particularly sea kayaking and mountain biking but we stick with the headline event and walk for about 6hrs on the Abel Tasman track getting as far as Anchorage Bay and Watering Cove ...

... back. Now I have to say that although you probably think I did very little, my muscles became pretty pumped and I was contributing greatly to the success of our journey. Admittedly I had more breaks than Steve, but I was not as lazy or bad as I thought I might be! It was a perfect finish to a perfect day, and after giving back all our lovely equipment we headed back to tree dimensions for a relaxing dinner, (and a lot of laundry!) before our big drive to Franz Josef.