The New Asylum Seekers
Trip Start
Nov 08, 2003
1
63
74
Trip End
Oct 22, 2004
Nelson,
New Zealand
Monday, October 4, 2004
After the previous day's cycling exploits we parked in town and hobbled bandy-legged into Nelson's Weekend Market. Expecting to find a fair amount of fruit and veg we were very pleasantly surprised to find over a hundred stalls selling arts, crafts, handmade clothes and organic produce as well as the usual stands selling cheap CD's and sunglasses.
Soph's eye lit up and soon she went to work with the premise to buy at least one thing from each stall, even if it meant buying two more rucsacs to hold them. Today though she had every right to splurge a bit as her birthday was approaching fast, and soon she found a pearl of a clothes stall called 'Chai' selling snazzy screen printed skirts of which choosing only one would have been an impossible exercise, so she chose two, one for summer, one for winter
Could I look happier?
. And after a new pair of sunglasses and a bikini, every 'tethered' man's nightmare was over and I could breathe again knowing I'd only have to work ten hours overtime to pay off the 'Spouse's Birthday Debt'. Chauvinistic? Yes. Falsehood? No.We liked Nelson Market; it was everything Greenwich Market wasn't: friendly, compact, diverse and sunny.
Eager to see more of this, so far, good-looking town, we walked through a busy shopping street and up some impressive granite steps to Church Hill dominated by the Anglican Christ Church Cathedral one of the strangest, most modern, churches we'd seen with its odd see-through bluish square tower overlooking the city centre. After a peek through it's windows we made our way down to South Street, an historic precinct lined with sixteen beautifully restored workers' cottages dating back 140 years, where we wandered up and down peering nosily through net curtains.
After another little stroll through town it was time to move on, but after our brief visit it was clear Nelson was a very liveable town, biggish and busy but retaining a villagey atmosphere.
On our way out of town we stopped in a suburb called Stoke, home to 'Macs' brewery and a brand of beer we were getting through at an alarming rate. The 'Macs Black' was a Guinness-beater and the 'Macs Blonde' was a nectar from the Gods infused with orange and coriander. But sadly it's unavailable in the UK, as an English ex-pat employee informed us as we wandered around a tasting room full of souvenirs
Did someone say sale?
.With a couple of 6-packs bought to keep us going for the next hour, we set off along SH6 to the town of Richmond where we slung a right onto SH60, a 140km dead end road that leads to the South Island's northerly tip.
Just past the town of Motueka the road began to get mountainous and curvy as it skirted the Abel Tasman National Park, the country's smallest national park but one of its best-known, a hiking and kayaking paradise of which we were sadly to see little of as our South Island egg-timer was gradually draining away and we had a ferry to catch.
At the sweetly hopeless town of Takaka (thanks to Mr Bryson for that adjective), we turned down a side road that would lead us to tonight's lucky caravan park that would have the pleasure of being our host for the evening. Pohara was a small town with a big caravan park perched on a long stretch of beach of which we stretched our long legs on, followed by laundry, dinner and a good go at putting a severe dent in our dozen beers.
5/9
Today we drove and drove another long, scenic route back to Picton, via the town of Saint Arnaud on the edge of the Nelson Lakes National Park
I'll take the lot thanks
. Not the largest of the lakes but surely the most stunning is the serene Lake Rotoiti, and it was there we ate our pea and ham soup lunch today in isolated peaceful bliss . . . together with about fifty other peace-shattering families who all had the same idea as us.After another ton was ticked off the odometre we arrived in a wet Renwick, a town surrounded by the Wairau Valley, New Zealand's largest wine region, and ordinarily we'd be propping up the bar at a local cellar door before you could say "Glass of white wine and a packet of salt and vinegar, please", but today was one of those grizzly, grey days where you just wanted to stay in the van and get to where you were going as quickly as possible.
From Renwick we headed north back to Havelock to pick up the Queen Charlotte Drive once more (actually our sixth time in all), and an hour later we were back in Picton for our last . . . sniff . . . night on the . . . sniff . . . South Island.
We were sad to be leaving the South Island as you can guess. It had been a land of extremes, when the weather was good it was dazzling and when it was bad it was wretched and there were no in betweens so you knew exactly where you stood
Looking up to Church Hill
. The roads were clear, the towns were populated just enough and the people were forthright and friendly. The scenery was, well I'll have to copy Lear and make up my own word as I've used all other superlatives. It was spondomegalificous. And when the scenery got too much you could go and throw yourself off the nearest bridge with a piece of elastic around your ankles, but fortunately we never tired of the views. The skiing was mostly good, especially at Cardrona and Roundhill, and the glacier hiking and mountain biking were real challenges with a thermal pool or spa bath always at the ready for tired limbs.In a nutshell we loved the South Island and we shall be seeking asylum for protection against a certain overcrowded country on the other side of the world.
Tomorrow we were to board the InterIslander ferry back to the North Island with a chance to catch anything we may have missed earlier on our travels, starting with the capital, Wellington.
Handkerchief please . . .
The Asylum Seekers
xx
