Havelock Garden Motels

die fahrt nach havelock, ein erlebnis, sehr, sehr kurvenreich, der küste entlang und gleichzeitig atemberaubend, um jede ecke......
nach 40 minuten dann ankunft in havelock.......hatte mir schon im vorfeld, über google earth, einen platz am hafen ausgesucht........aber........."no camping"......grrrrrrrrrrrrr..........n a gut, dann auf den campingplatz, gleich ...

... who greeted us were horrendous. We dare not make eye contact with them and so after checking in we hid all our belongings and scarpered into town. The town centre itself was gorgeous and was reminiscent of a European city, dominated by an English built Cathedral. Shopping was high on the agenda as Nelson is a real shopping haven and its claim to fame is that Peter Jackson had the 'one' ring made here at a place called Jens Hansen and the ring is ...

... evenings for a while (how sad is that!) and had a few too many pints. We ended up chatting to this old, bearded American guy who 'bobbed' us. We knew all about his 2 ex-wives and why they were exes, his finances, his job, his politics. By the end he had given us his phone number and invited us to stay! Unfortunately, we had to get up at 6am to get to the Abel Tasman national park where we planned to do a big overnight hike. yey for us.

New Years Day. It was gorgeous weather. Drove along the windy coast road to Havelock, greenshell Mussel capital of the world! Wow. It was a cute little back-in-time town with another sausage sizzle, yum, and a OAP craft market selling absolute tat. We wondered around happily and got back to the car to find a policeman just putting a notice on the windscreen. Hello hello, what's all this then...I wish Paul had said, but he didn't. We apparently had ...

... a look as it was sunny, but didn't find any hoped for cafes on the waterfront, so we came back into Picton for brunch. Got on the ferry and had comfy seats until the children's magician turned up so we were "forced" to adjourn to the bar. Got back to our usual Mana Motel and soon headed to the Monteith's pub down the road.

... Zepplin, mummy's undies flapping in the breeze behind, to muster an army of Fantails to go into the Abel Tasman National Park on a mission that entailed basically eating as many sandflies as they could manage! Several hours later he returned triumphant with a load of waddling Fantails who spent the next hour in the garden with us generally burping / pumping and letting their dinner settle! At last it was bed time again, so Fes took RT back home in the Zepplin. RT ...

... shortfall only to be faced with racism and bigotry. What they deserved was respect and a thankyou. To give him his due, he did actually seem a little ashamed at this point. Anyway, end of rant.) (Lois: I agree with David but still think there are too many immigrants in the UK too!) Anyway, after Breakfast, we were still all friends!! And we checked out and headed onto our next destination: Picton, from where we would catch our ferry onto Wellington and the North Island. Love, us xxxx

... offshore rocks and waves breaking onto it. The cliff faces slowly receeded inland and gave way to ever increasing lower hills and grazing land. The area was now greener than the dry brown that we had seen on the train journey down over five weeks ago. Yes - we had been on the South Island for more than five weeks - where had the time gone??? We were now in the 'Marlborough' region and great areas of vine growing rapidly showed up, interspersed with fields of dairy ...

... overview of each wine that we taste. We move on to Framingham, where the old oaken door is still locked. Alan calls to scold them, and they rush out to let us in. This is a more old-style winery, with a lovely courtyard and a tasting room with wood floors. The two women on duty were chatting each other up and lost track of time, since they hadn't worked together for quite some time. We forgave them when they made Alan a cup of coffee! We get a little more history here. I ...

I arose around 7am, had a short breakfast and packed my bags. The sign said 5 ½ hours hike to Duncan Bay (where our shuttle is meeting us), so we had plenty of time. After a bit of reading, I left Te Mahoerangi around 8:15, Teresa decided to stay for awhile so I pushed on alone. The weather had pulled a complete 180. Low clouds clung to the hills and breeze off of the water necessitated long sleeves. Much better hiking weather than ...