Half Nelson
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2006
1
128
179
Trip End
Oct 31, 2007
Nelson, New Zealand
Saturday, June 23, 2007
At Murchison we found a decent little cafe where I had a steak sandwich and Rach a B.L.A.T (not 'bacon lettuce and tomato'; the A is in fact for avocado). Suitably nourished, we dropped down into sunlit sheep-filled valleys and then the coast, and arrived at the Tasman Bay Backpackers in Nelson in time for a quick walk to the bottom of the surrounding hills in the last of the light.
In winter, 'backpackers' (by which name the hostels here are mostly known) try to keep the numbers up by offering freebies
01 Nelson coast at sunset
. Tonight's freebie was movies and chocolate, so I sat through most of Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore in Music and Lyrics in exchange for a couple of packets of Smarties (or 'Pebbles', as they are known here). It was a reasonable trade, I suppose. After another excellent home-cooked dinner of gurnard fillets floured and flash-fried served with Puy lentils and buttered spinach with great lashings of NZ sauvignon blanc (It's all I'll drink these days, darling), we sat through the woeful Butterfly Effect 2. At times I wished I could turn back time (which is the movie's subject matter), to the moment when I said to Rachel: "let's stay in and watch Butterfly Effect 2".No matter. We're going to make the most of our 11.00am lie-in allowance tomorrow (another winter special at this excellent hostel - normal check out is 10.00am) and then head south down the opposite, east coast to see if we can't get up to the mountains that way instead. Divide and conquer - that's our motto. Oh, and the title to this post? Yep - the best I could do with "Nelson", I'm afraid. (T)
