New Zealand Post Mortem

We leave on the 29^th for Sydney. How would I sum up our two weeks here? Too short! There were so many more things that we would have liked to see or would have liked to spend more time at. We won and we lost with the rental car versus bus trade-off. A bus ride would have been a lot easier and we would have made it to Milford Sound, but we would have missed some things too and might have had to cut our time short at other places. As demanding as the driving is, a bus tour might have been a better choice for this country. C’est la vie.

Tired dogs

We walked around Timaru for about an hour this afternoon (27th) and in Christchurch for another two hours. Walking is still the best way to explore and get a feel for the country but are my dogs tired!

Toured around the Botanic Gardens – very large with lots of flowers beds, exotic trees, fountains, statues, ponds. Best part was that it practically every plant and tree was labeled so we didn’t have to guess what we were looking at. The gardens were not as lush as the botanic gardens in Wellington but at least it was on level ground – enough with the hill climbing.

The International Buskers Festival is in town and some performances are being held downtown in their Arts Centre. The Arts Centre is really neat - it has been converted from their old University of Canterbury buildings – very old and gothic looking. We didn’t stop to take in any of the Busker’s performances today (it only cost a dollar) but it looks like they drew quite a crowd.

Bonus

We left the motel in Dunedin around 9:30 and drove down to the Harvey Norman store (kind of like the Brick) to post our blog from a wireless hotspot. Bonus – there was no charge, although they put us at a service desk with customers walking by. That was a little awkward but the price was right!

Next, before leaving town, we headed for another tourist attraction – Baldwin Street – the steepest street in the world (according to the Guinness Book of World Records). It looked a little too long and a little too steep for me walk (had enough climbing for now, thank you) so we drove it. A few tourists were doing the same including the couple from Calgary we ran into yesterday. They must be using the same tour book that we are.

Christchurch again (for Jan. 28)

Today was a pretty good day. It started overcast after an overnight rain, but by early afternoon we had clear blue sky. We toured around the city centre again, then to the Arts Centre (headquarters for the Busker Festival), then to the Canterbury Museum, then to the beach, and, finally, to a wildlife park.

The Cathedral Square was bustling with a small market and a busker venue, but we didn’t stay long. We were going to take a tram ride, but since we had already walked almost the whole route last night, decided not to. We watched them “punting” (like gondola rides) on the river, but didn’t take that ride either. We moved on to the main venue at the Arts Centre, which was the old Canterbury University. It is a collection of a half dozen stone buildings just like a scene out of a British movie about a university. They had a market going on there as well as performances. There wasn’t anything too special at the market and we weren’t too taken by the comedy performance that was on, so we moved across the street to the museum. There was another performance in the side yard there that did capture us, so we watched it before going in.

The museum was fantastic. They had a huge collection that was very well displayed. They had a number of dioramas like the Regina museum, placing people and animals in context. Of course, they had a large Maori section, and a larger section on European settlement and pioneers. There was an excellent section on Antarctic exploration. They also had a section of mounted birds, including the Canada Goose, introduced here in 1876. The farmers here consider it a pest. Flocks land in a pasture, eat the grass, and foul what is left with their droppings. Sounds just like home.

After lunch we went to the beach. It goes on for miles with large dunes behind it. We went down to the pier, where most of the action was. There were many bathers and surfers in the water and fishermen on the pier. There was another busker venue and we took in part of a show.

Our last stop was the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve. We weren’t sure what to expect and were ready for disappointment, but we were very pleasantly surprised. It had a path that wound through various compounds of animals and birds. It was superbly laid out and planted to give excellent views in a natural setting. Some exhibits were in cages that you had to view from outside, but, in most cases, you walked into the compound with the animals and birds. It was excellent in every way.

They had a Canada Goose there too. While pretty near every other creature ignored us, the Canada Goose came swimming up and squawking for bread, just like at home. And we finally got to see our Kiwi. They had an excellent Kiwi house with several birds. It was dark enough that the nocturnal birds were active, but lit well enough that you could see them in action. No flash photography, but they had a stuffed one conveniently placed at the entrance.

Christchurch (for Jan. 27)

Well, it finally happened. We jumped into the car this morning and turned into the empty street in front of our small town motel. Everything went great for the first block. Then, another car approached me from the opposite direction in my lane! What a bozo! Oops, the bozo was me!

We hit the road at 9:30, squeezed off some more pictures of Mount Cook in the morning light, stopped in Timaru for about 3 hours, booked into our motel in Christchurch at 4:30, and went exploring.

We started the day on a dry, wide plain, surrounded by distant mountains. Even here a few sheep eked out a meager existence on the sparse grass. We descended a tame mountain pass into a narrower valley that, due to the vagaries of weather, was much less arid and full of grazing you-know-whats. As we neared the coast near Timaru, the valley widened into a gently rolling, and, eventually, flat coastal plain. From Timaru to Christchurch, we were on a flat coastal plain the whole way. I was able to use cruise control pretty regularly today – the first time since we hit the country.

Timaru was quite interesting. It is another small city full of pre-1900 buildings. They have been overtaken by progress more than the ones at Oamaru. They are dressed up more, their features are more hidden by modern signage, and there are more gaps filled in with modern buildings, but they were still pretty neat. We found a nice park there for a picnic lunch.

At Christchurch, we went for a long walk through the Botanic Garden and then downtown. The garden was pretty good, but we have seen a few recently, so we weren’t blown away. Downtown is very interesting with old buildings also, a small river winding through town, and a thriving café scene. More tomorrow.

Summer is the season for road work in this country too. They have no need for crack filling with tar and sand, but they do resurfacing, something like we do. Whereas we would put down tar and sand or fine gravel, they use tar (at least, I assume so, although I never saw it – they must cover it immediately) and crushed rock. The pieces are up to the size of your last pinkie finger joint. If I would have known how much of this we would encounter, I think I would have bought the glass insurance. Looks like we made it though.

Mt. Cook (for Jan. 26)

I have to amplify what Celeste said about Baldwin St. We did drive to the top. I walked half way down (the steepest part) to take some pictures and back up again. The Calgary couple was walking the whole thing.

By the time we were done blogging and touring and had lunch, it was nearly noon. We drove near the coast through low hills and plains full of – guess what? – sheep and cattle. We stopped at the Moeraki Boulders for a look. These are almost perfectly round boulders that eroded from the banks behind them. For a bunch of round rocks, they were actually kind of interesting. They had developed a kind of turtle shell exterior and, the ones that had split open exposed very colourful and varied interiors.

Next stop was the town of Oamaru. One attraction was a penguin colony, but they only come ashore a half hour after dusk and we were there at 1:30 in the afternoon, so we moved on. The other attraction was “the best-preserved collection of historic commercial buildings in NZ.” Practically the whole town was made up of these classic buildings. There were so many that I didn’t know where to start or finish, so I didn’t take any pictures.

From there, we turned inland toward Mt. Cook. The wide plain narrowed as we climbed into mountains that again reminded me of Kamloops. At the top of that valley the terrain opened into a wide plain surrounded by low mountains. We stopped at Maori rock art site. Many of the paintings had been removed to museums many years ago, but there were still a few left. Unfortunately, much of the site had been ruined by vandalism and graffiti. Very interesting limestone rock formation though.

We booked in to a motel in Twizel around 4, then carried on to Mt. Cook, New Zealand’s highest mountain, taking many pictures on the way and while we were there. It is interesting to note that 2.5 days and 1,000 km after leaving the town of Fox Glacier, we were then only 30 km south of there.

We got back to the motel around 6:30, ate, and went for a walk. What a neat town, in a boring, small town kind of way. It was constructed in the 1968 to house construction workers for a huge, multi-year hydro development. When the project was done, the population shrank to those needed in the ongoing operation and those in the Mt. Cook tourism industry. The whole town is centred on a market area with restaurants and stores. Just a stone’s throw from town is a young kid’s paradise. The small river (in summer, anyway) lined with willow trees has an old swimming hole right out of a story book, complete with rope swing. There were at least a dozen kids in the main spot, with others nearby, and we ran into some others on their way. What an idyllic setting. Every other kid in town must have been at the market square, where there was a playground and other attractions for older kids.

Lumsden

Someone blogged us suggesting that since we don’t have pictures of ourselves on the blog that it is possible that we really aren’t where we say we are. Perhaps it is true as today we were in Lumsden.

No, not that Lumsden.

And there was a Laura Street too.

PS – met another Canadian couple from Calgary at the Cadbury tour. Had a nice chat comparing chocolate.

One of Dohs Daze(for Jan. 24)

Yesterday was one of those days where we had a series of events that can be summed up by quoting Homer Simpson, “Doh!”

Decided to start off the day by leisurely taking in the sights walking along the beach, taking in attractions at the gondola and kiwi house. The Gondola ride was great but when we got to the Kiwi House we found out the admission had gone up from $10.50 to $25 each. – Doh! No thanks.

So we carried on touring and then I walked into a shop while wearing sunglasses – didn’t see the step down, stumbled in and went over on my ankle – Doh! Had to gimp around the rest of the day.

Stopped in at a cell phone store to enquire about using our cell phone in Australia – turns out we can only top up our minutes in New Zealand – we can’t do it from Australia – Doh!

Bought a new t-shirt with shorter sleeves and got a sunburn above my tan line - Doh!

So we went back to our motel room around lunch time – the Chinese housekeeper asked us (I’m not sure but I think he asked us as he was hard to understand) if we wanted our towels changed. We said no thanks and went into our room. I think he took that as meaning he did not have to clean the room or do anything else. Consequently, he did not give us any milk for the next day. Doh!

We toured around more in the afternoon and picked up a brochure on touring Milford Sound – it said the one way trip would take 5 hours – 12 hours return of which most would be over steep winding roads! Doh! No thanks.

So we decided to change our plans – maybe do some laundry after supper – laundry closed after 6pm – Doh!

Then we realized we won’t have milk for breakfast so we decided to stop in at the grocery store on the way to the internet cafe. As luck would have it, after finally getting to the front of the slowest line-up at the checkout we realized that neither one of us has brought any money – Doh! Had to put everything back and go back to the motel and start again.

We bought something called ‘Wheat Biscuits’ which, judging by the picture on the box, was a type of granola bar – a quick easy snack to eat while driving. Wrong - a wheat biscuit is more like Nabisco Shredded Wheat – dry, dry, dry. Doh!

Then at the internet café we couldn’t believe our luck when we discovered that it was just $5. per hour or 10 cents per minute. We whipped through in just under 30 minutes for what we thought was a great deal for just $3. We were pretty pleased with ourselves until as we were leaving we read a sign that said from 9:00 pm to 11:00 pm the charge was $3 per hour! We could have stayed on-line for another 30 minutes for the same price – Doh!

Some days are just like that. Doh!

Dunedin (for Jan. 25)

We had a good experience at the Internet place last night. They had about 30 computers and a couple of laptop stations at $5 per hour. When we found the place earlier in the day, it was pretty full. But when we went back about 9:30 PM it was packed. I don’t think there was an empty seat in the house except the laptop ports – lucky for us. And our uploads went much faster since I looked at my photo editor and found how to shrink the pictures. To 5 seconds from about 5 minutes! That should make all of you happier too, as it will load much faster for you also.

We hit the road at 9 and were in our new motel by 3. We started this morning in a narrow valley between fairly barren mountains. The first few kms was alongside a lake followed by areas of grazing sheep and cattle. After about an hour, right where we would have turned off at Milford Sound, it opened into a much wider valley between low mountains in the distance that gradually petered out into hills. The main agriculture was sheep grazing – the highest concentration that we have seen so far – plus a few cattle and deer grazing and some forage crops.

Alongside the lake we came across an area where they had set up traffic lights to permit one way traffic while they worked on the other lane. They were trenching right down the middle of one of the driving lanes! I guess when everything is rock, the middle of the road is the best place to go.

We saw our first speed trap today – no, you guessed wrong – we didn’t get a ticket. This car has a warning buzzer set at 110 kph to warn you if your speed creeps up on you on the rare straight-aways.

I caught some weather reports in the last couple of days. The first one warned of a deep low pressure area with a clod front from the northwest causing a big storm on the north island with 4 to 6 inches of rain being common. Last night there were reports of extensive flooding, downed trees and downed power lines but we experienced good weather here. The forecast for here was for a weaker cold front from the southwest to bring mostly cloudy skies, cooler temperatures and possible showers for today. Looks to be right on.

After finding our motel in Dunedin, we made our first stop at the Cadbury factory. They export some of the product made here to Canada. It was just like Discovery Channel – with samples! Not quite Milford Sound, but tastier. And they let us keep the hats! They had a basket of cocoa beans ready for processing that you could sample. They tasted and smelled much like powdered cocoa used in baking. And the whole factory smelled like baking chocolate. That would be a tough place to work! Afterward, we toured some of the downtown. There are many interesting buildings from the 1800s.

I am a little bummed about missing Milford Sound. If we had noticed the problem sooner, we could have positioned ourselves for a shorter day. As it was, it would have been a doable, but long and difficult day, leaving the rest of our time here on a pretty tight timetable. And then there is the driving and the weather. We would have had two hours of decent driving, 3 hours of wicked driving, a cruise for a couple of hours, and another 3 bad hours back to where we would have stayed. I normally don’t mind driving, but this mountain stuff has worn me down to where I don’t look forward to it very much. Milford Sound is known for its wet weather and, when it is not raining, its swarms of biting sand flies (probably the ones we encountered a couple of days ago). We are at the stage of life when our desire for comfort overcomes our sense of adventure. Add it all up and Milford Sound wasn’t going to happen for us.

An afterthought: I meant to mention that after walking across town for fish and chips in Blenheim, we came across a fish and chips takeaway store about a block in the other direction when we left the next morning. I wish they had been in the yellow pages!

Another one: None of the places we have stayed have had any kind of central heating or cooling. Only a couple have had room air conditioners. All have had in room heaters and many have had electric blankets. I guess that’s how it is in this climate. The heaters are often an electric radiator affair, but we have also seen water radiators and more familiar electric heaters like at home.

No Kiwis today

We had also planned to take in the ‘Kiwi and Birdlife Park’ as was described in our slightly out of date tour book. The book listed the cost of admission as $10.50. We estimated the price would have gone up to maybe $15 – which is OK by my sensibilities. When we got there – the price was a whopping $25 each – no thanks! We had already seen the other birds in the Wellington Zoo – the only thing we wanted to see was the kiwi and it just wasn’t worth $50 for the two of us. There will be other opportunities in Christchurch or, if not, I’ll buy a postcard with a picture of one!

Thrill seeking in Queenstown

Today we went jet boating, skydiving, paragliding, parasailing, white water rafting, bungy jumping, trekking, horseback riding, and more – Not! This is pretty much the tourist capital of New Zealand, with every type of tour and adventure that you can imagine and a happening nightlife. However, we really don’t have any interest in all those thrill rides. We rode the gondola to the top of the mountain overlooking the town, enjoyed the view, and explored the town. It is like a larger Banff without any animals to get in the way. I was going to say that every second store on the waterfront was a restaurant and bar, but that would be a lie. Virtually every store was a restaurant and bar! Behind the waterfront were more eateries, tour companies, and souvenir stores. A few “normal” businesses were squeezed in here and there. Nevertheless, it is very scenic, and we enjoyed walking around pretty much all day.

We discovered an error in our planned itinerary for tomorrow. The tour company book I used to lay things out said it was 170 km and 2+45 to Milford Sound. When we got looking at the details today, it is actually over 5 hours, plus a cruise of a few hours (if we can get there in time to catch one), then we would have to backtrack 4 hours to get back on our route. We came to the conclusion that it would make the rest of our timetable too tight. It is a bit of a disappointment, because it is part of a World Heritage Area and is billed as the Eighth Wonder of the World. I am sure it is very impressive, but we have seen mountains by water before, so we will have to live without it.

Many of the sites used in the filming of “Lord of the Rings” are around here and there a many tours that will take you to them.

Glaciers & Queenstown (for Jan. 23)

Today was a looong day. We hit the road at 8:30 and reached Franz Josef, at the foot of the glacier of the same name about 10:30. We checked out the visitor centre then went to the Internet centre we had seen in an ad. It was the best we have seen yet – broadband internet on a standard Ethernet cable for $4NZ per hour. Part of the operation is run from an old bus parked out front. Including the bus and the building, they had more than a dozen computers for browsing and they allow you to connect your own laptop. We spent an hour and a half catching up with the last 3 days. The big holdup is the pictures. I will have to look at downsizing them for the blog.

From there we drove up to the glacier parking lot. Fortunately, I took some long distance pictures of the mountain top earlier, because, by the time we got there, it had pretty much clouded over. We walked in to a viewpoint, but elected not to walk right to the face. We had a long way to go today and, as Celeste said, “I have touched glaciers and ice and snow at home.” So we drove on to the Fox Glacier, which was also obscured by cloud. We did take a side road up to a viewpoint though.

I have been meaning to write about their rainforest compared to ours. I was going to say that theirs is much lower growing than the huge evergreens we have on the west coast of North America. Our experience was that, as a general rule, the bush was less than 20 feet tall with occasional trees of 60 or 80 feet. On our trip up the mountain though, we found that when you got higher up the mountain, the character changed to be much more like our west coast than what we had seen at lower altitudes. They still didn’t have the giant trees we have, but the general character of the vegetation was less like the beach and more like our mountains.

We left Fox Glacier around 3 and arrived in Queenstown about 9. Too pooped for any touring tonight. Just a short blog.

We had an interesting experience on the plain after leaving Fox Glacier. I pulled onto the narrow shoulder to take a picture. The shoulder was very soft and gave way under the left front wheel. I couldn’t back out, so flagged down a car to ask them to get a tow truck for us from the next town. (Our Vodafone coverage here is kind of like Rogers coverage at home – not very good in the boonies.) The fellow offered to try to push us out, so, with him and me pushing and Celeste at the wheel, we were back on the road in no time.

We had not had any trouble with insects from the moment we left Regina until now. Celeste got a few bites last night at Hokitika (maybe at the glow worms) and there were some nasty little biting flies at Knights Point Lookout on the coast.

Until the last 3 ½ hours, we were always near the coast, although we seldom saw it. We would drive for a while on a plain, then cross the toe of some mountains to another plain. Sheep, cattle, and, occasionally, farmed deer were grazing. (We have actually seen quite a few deer farms pretty much from day one, and venison seems popular on the few restaurant menus we have seen.) Because we were on flatter ground, the roads were usually a little straighter today, although we must have crossed nearly 20 of those one lane bridges. At Haast, we turned inland climbing up the Haast River gorge through rainforest on the usual mountain roads. After the summit, the land changed almost immediately, just like on our west coast. At first, the mountains seemed quite stark and bare. I am no “Lord of the Rings” aficionado, but for some reason they remind me of that movie. Later, I was reminded of the Kamloops area of BC, with dry, low, rounded mountains, grazing sheep, cattle, and farmed deer, and a few trees where there is shade or water. Later still, it became like the Okanagan with orchards and vineyards until Queenstown.

Birthday wishes

I got your birthday wishes by email through the blogger. Thanks everyone.

Two more pieces of Canadiana

When we were in the Punakaiki visitor centre, I signed the guest book. The people who signed the book ahead of me were Mike and Ellie Kuntz of Sault Ste. Marie, Canada. Not that I knew them but they were from Canada and he has the same name as my Uncle Mike. Weird coincidence, eh? I should have asked around the Centre to see if they were still there – but you know as the saying goes, ‘you snooze - you lose’.

After supper tonight I turned on the TV in the motel – the reality show “The Amazing Race” was on. It was the “Canada” episode where the teams traveled to Montreal and Toronto.

Hard work

I am sure that everyone at home thinks this is a relaxing vacation, but I assure you that it is arduous work! Our mornings begin with a shower, breakfast, and packing up our gear from the night before. Then we spend a full day intense driving and less intense touring. We usually try to find a motel around 5, and then tour the local area and eat, finishing up around 7 or later. Then the real work begins. It normally takes at least a couple of hours to set up with cables, converters, and such, download pictures to the laptop, cull, sort, and label them, back them up to CD, then write our blog, and upload it and images. Next morning, the drudgery begins all over again. Consider yourselves lucky that you don’t have to keep up this pace!

Random thoughts by Glenn

In all the Maori history we learned last week, it is striking how similar it is to that of our own Indians. Conflict and misunderstanding throughout. And now governments throwing money at the problems as appeasement.

If you have been following along, I am sure that you are well reversed on the state of the roads here. But what about this? You are driving these narrow roads with no shoulder. You are on the inside of a blind turn around a rock outcropping, trying to avoid falling off the shoulder or clipping the rocks and trees that are right up to the edge of the road when, suddenly opposite direction traffic appears, trying to shortcut the corner by driving on your side of the centerline. Not a good feeling and not a rare occurrence!

Cruise control is a wasted feature on a car here. I have tried to use it a few times when it looked like there might be a straight stretch of road, but you go 2 or 3 km and have to slow for a curve or a town, so it just isn’t worth setting.

Internet experience

We have had quite a wide range of experiences getting connected.

Jan. 10 – Auckland – Kiosk in hotel lobby. Paid $10NZ for 1 hour. Were able to check and send email.

Jan. 11 – Auckland – In room broadband with standard connection included. We were so encouraged that this would be the norm. Wrong!

Jan. 12 – Coromandel – Not available.

Jan. 13 – Rotorua – Dataport in room, but you need a dial up provider, which we don’t have.

Jan. 14 – Rotorua – Found out that they had a wireless hotspot and got connected, but didn’t have much success. Found out that you had to be in the lobby. $10NZ/hour.

Jan. 15 – Napier – The hotel keeper rented us a wireless card for $10NZ, preconfigured for their own network that we could use until we checked out.

Jan. 16 – near Wellington – Dataport as on Jan. 13.

Jan. 17 & 18 – Wellington – Wireless hotspot that we had to use in the lobby. $10NZ/hr.

Jan. 19 – Blenheim – In room with standard cable. $10NZ per megabyte.

Jan. 20 – Nelson – Hotel keeper provided a modem for $10/hr. It connected to the laptop with a standard cable, but its only connection to the wall was by the power cord.

Jan. 21 – Westport – Dataport in room, but no use to us. Hotel keeper let us plug into his broadband service from the lobby and charged us $1 for the half hour or less that we spent.

Jan. 22 – Hokitika - Dataport again.

I wonder how many variations we will end up with by the time we are done.

Punakaiki and Hokitika (for Jan. 22)

Westport was a coal port until they closed the mines many years ago. There is quite a coal mining history, so that is what we expected in the Coaltown Museum. But there was a lot more. They had a very good collection of artifacts, well displayed, also representing gold mining, seafaring, beer brewing, medicine, and a few other topics. Very surprising for a town of about 6,000 people. One of the displays was of a coal car that used to bring coal down from the mountain at up to an 80 degree angle. They had an ingenious system of using the gravity of a full car, with a braking system, to pull an empty car back up. Sounds pretty simple, but the logistics of swapping cars in and out and switching them at a level halfway point was pretty complex. It is pretty amazing what they were able to accomplish using the tools of the day.

We got away about 11:30, but made slow progress. Around every corner was a new scenic vista, so we stopped a few times for picture taking. As the driver, you are so focused on the road that you really can’t appreciate the view without stopping. It’s also hard to take pictures while driving. We reached Punakaiki, had lunch, and began the hike at about 1 PM. Punakaiki is a place where limestone cliffs have been eroded to pancake-like spires and where surging seas can create geyser-like blow holes. For the best effect, it has to be high tide with heavy seas. We were there several hours before high tide and the seas were pretty calm, so we didn’t wait to see the blow holes. We took the walk twice though. The morning had been overcast and dark with one little shower. I was disappointed in the light conditions for picture taking. Near the end of our first walk, the skies cleared, so we went back around. It took a little over an hour to do it twice.

We saw a new twist on the one lane bridge today – a one lane bridge shared with a train track. I wonder who has the right of way there?

We decided to stop in Hokitika because they had a “glow worm dell” and the National Kiwi Centre that our guide book said was open until 7 PM. We thought that we could get these two things in this evening and get an early start tomorrow. We stopped at the glow worm dell, but it is outdoors and you can’t see them until dark, so we will have to try that later. We booked into a motel about 4, got ourselves settled and set out for a tour. We got to the Kiwi place at 5:30, only to learn that they now close at 5, so we headed down to the beach for a walk. Like Westport, the beach here is wide, exposed, and littered with driftwood. We observed several shapes where people had constructed things out of the driftwood. Cool? Or lame? My first reaction was “lame.” Until we got closer and inspected some of them. They were the remains of the “Driftwood and Sand” sculpture competition. Many were very well conceived and executed. Very cool!

No Internet tonight, but we saw an ad for a place on our route tomorrow where you can plug in with your own laptop.

Just got back from checking out the glow worms. Thousands of tiny blue lights on a cliff face. Like tiny LEDs. Very interesting. We went at 10 PM when there was just a hint of light left in the sky.

Westport (for Jan. 21)

I meant to mention yesterday that there must be a busker convention on, because they seem to be on every street corner. Also, I meant to say that there is quite the family entertainment complex behind the beach. There is a huge playground, playing fields, picnic areas, a skateboard park, etc. And a question: Why are we the only ones wearing New Zealand T-shirts? And an observation: This car does not have near the reflection of the dashboard in the windshield as the previous one. That is a welcome relief.

We took in some lookout points this morning, and then went to the weekend flea market in the centre of town. I wasn’t too keen at first, thinking it would be all the same old stuff, but it definitely wasn’t. Nelson is known as a bit of an arts town, and it was evident at the market. Some very high quality and very unique items (in addition to the usual stuff). There was a performance artist there acting as a moving statue blowing bubbles. Very cool. We picked up some German salami (Mmmm, garlic), a 20 pound loaf of pumpernickel, and some fresh blueberries (Blueberries and strawberries are in season now; Mmmmm).

On the way out of town we found a park and had a picnic with our purchases before hitting the road around noon. Our drive today started the same as yesterday: orchards and vineyards near the coast; grazing sheep giving way to cattle and lumbering as we climbed into some low mountains. After a couple of hours we found ourselves in a National Park. It was much more naturally forested on low mountains, kind of like around Hope, BC. The last half hour was down a narrow river gorge. There were a couple of places where a narrow track was hacked out of the side of the mountain and only one car could pass at a time, but, overall, the road wasn’t as bad as some of the others we have been on – or am I just getting used to it? There are numerous places where they could widen and straighten the road if they wanted to, but apparently, they like them this way. The surface is sure good, though. When it is built on rock, gravel, or sand and there is no freeze/thaw cycle, they stand up pretty well.

We reached Westport around 3 PM and headed out to the seal rookery near town. That was pretty interesting and very scenic. We came back to town, got a motel, and did some more exploring down to the beach and around town. The beach here is very wide too, but it is not sheltered like the one at Nelson. So it is not much for bathing and it is littered with driftwood. A great place for bonfires!

Check pics added to "Nelson"