South Island

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March 5 - 8 Wellington,

We headed to Wellington after the National Park and where there for 4 nights. First night was in a Backpackers that’s claim to fame is that royalty stayed there 60 years ago. Since then it has been on a downhill slide. The next couple of nights was in the YHA hostel which was much better.
Wellington is the third largest city in NZ. That is changing though as people move out of Christchurch, making Wellington the second largest. This is a place that when the sun shines it is wonderful, but not so when raining. It was raining for the first 3 days we were there. However, the city has a magnificent (free) museum that took us the better part of the three days to get through. Our last day the sun came out and what a pretty place. Took the cable car us the hill and wandered through the park gardens. Nothing too exciting while here.

March 9 - 11 Nelson

I have found my New Zealand ‘home‘. For the past three days Darrel and I have been dreaming of ways we can spend a good part of each winter right here. Nelson is the geographical centre of NZ and is known for having more annual sunshine that any other area. It has mountains, parks, golden beaches, sunshine, and a relaxed paced community. We even lucked out on our choice of accommodation. The hostel we are staying in, the Parisdiso, has a motel attached to it which is where we are staying. It is clean, comfortable, and has a fridge, microwave and jacuzzi tub. What more could a person ask for.
We spent our first day here on a tour up to the National Park. It was an hour bus ride, followed by an hour boat trip that took us to a seal colony. I have to admit that the seal colony left a lot to be desired as we only saw about half a dozen seals, but oh well, we have seen lots at home. From there we were deposited at a beach where we then hiked for about 4.5 km back to another beach. While there we took a quick swim in the ocean...it was very refreshing (cold). After being picked up again by the boat, we made our way to town.
Today (11th) we wandered around the city of Nelson and made the spur of the moment decision to take a city tour on a 1925 Morris Commercial tour bus (in original condition). Part of the tour included a visit to car and wearable arts museum. Now, the car museum was exactly what one would expect - Darrel enjoyed it. The wearable arts part was even more interesting (or so I thought). Nelson started this art style around 25 years ago and it has taken off into an international show. All the ‘clothes’ are made of castoff items and are used as body art…nothing practical here.
We could easily spend more time here in Nelson, but are booked to move on tomorrow. Who knows…maybe we will be back.

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