Easter with Nancy and Mark

  Nelson, New Zealand
Monday, April 9, 2007

We had the most important people to visit on the trip in Nelson, Nancy and Mark Sayer. Nancy and Mom go way back - they attended nursing school together and have stayed friends all these years.

Nancy and Mark waved goodbye to America over a decade ago and moved to Australia. They enjoyed Australia but on a trip to New Zealand a few years ago they thought it would also be a nice place to live. So here they are. Nelson is known for being a very livable city in New Zealand, sunny, not too hot or cold, with lots of coastline, fishing, etc. We also found it very charming.

Nancy kept us busy with a trip to the Farmers Market on Saturday and a tour of the cute shops in the town. We are very impressed with New Zealand apples. These apples are the only ones that could rival the Washington apples back at home. Plus, they have some fabulous varieties that we don't grow. So, apples were always on the menu during this trip.

Another notable fact we learned is that books are unbelievably expensive in New Zealand. We popped into a bookstore to peruse and buy Dad some newspapers. I was thrilled to see "The Good Husband of Zebra Drive" The newest Precious Ramotswe book by Alexander McCall Smith. I grabbed it off the shelf ready to buy and nearly had a heart attack. $40!!! That is 30 US dollars. It is $21 in the US and I will note that I bought it at Costco during our leg in California for $12. Nancy says that her book club actually buys books from Amazon and has them shipped over and it is still cheaper than buying local.

A shop in Nelson made the Ring for Lord of the Rings so it had to get a look. It turns out they had to made a number of them, all different sizes for the different shots (when the ring is flung at the screen at the end of Return of the King it has to be much bigger).

We were lucky to get some beer tasting in with Mark, a real beer connesuire. 

Getting a beer lesson from Mark

He bought a number of local brews and gave me a good lesson of what makes different kinds of beers different. Very educational and very tasty!

     We had a nice Easter with early morning service at the Anglican Cathedral and then had a delicious ham dinner. This was followed by a tour of Rabbit Island.

    Overall it was a very fun stop on our trip. It is always fun to stop with friends. Mom and Nancy had plenty of interesting stories to tell of their nursing school days. My personal favorite remains their classmate who gave a cardiac patient 23 nitro tablets because his chest pain wouldn't get better (yes, he died) and the classmate who was caught by mom reconstituting powder IV antibiotic with tap water.

    Tuesday morning we were off to Picton to catch our ferry to the North Island.