Golden Bay, Nelson & Around

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Well getting the bus back from Motueka to Old McDonalds Farm we saw goats and sheep and pigs and..... no!!!! we met up with a friendly chap Simon whom we had met on the Queen Charlotte Track. He's from Manchester and was kind of stuck with the weird Kiwi backpacker bus connections so we offered for him to join us on a tour of Golden Bay.

First stop was Collingwood, the only thing I can remember about this weird old school place is that is near the farewell spit and had something to do with gold. I think everywhere in NZ has something to do with gold!! Therefore after admiring some linoneum artwork I decided that all are is too expensive and I cam going to do my own with that bit of lino off the kitchen floor. Apparently I am missing the point...

We headed North to the farewell spit viewing platform (a bird researve), a short walk taking you up to panoramic views of the 10km long sand spit that forms the beak of the kiwi from a birds eye view of South Island. It was a clear day so we could just about make out the lighthouse through binocalars. Farewall spit sees its fair share of whale grounding and even runs a volunteers program to help rescue stranded whales with over 320+ being saved in one day back in the 90's.

Headed up to Wharaiki beach, for low tide, which has sea caves, sea tunnels and baby seals (now thats cool). The sand was so hot it burn your feet so we did the obligitory Brit paddling and photos. Finally a visit to Cape Farewell lighthouse, the northerly most point in NZ South Island. It has stunning vistas of the powerful Tasman sea along the clifftop walk. Back to OldMcDonalds via the fish & chip shop where I gave my leftover chips to some hippies and told them to get a job, its amazing how fast a spaceship can travel!!!

The following day we went to visit Art Galleries in the Southern shores of Golden Bay. The artwork that really stood out for me was the oil on canvas work of Peter Cook although others were good but not as good as the artisits prices.

Heading back into Nelson we paid a visit to the Tasman brewery to stock up on much needed cider! Although its not as good as the Wilkins cider from back home it is not a bad attempt.. We paid a visit to the Free House pub which is run by an Englishman and lenjoyed their song book of ye olde English pub songs... A visit to the Nelson Art Gallery confirmed to me that art is easier than it looks and I shall be starting with a run of 1000 prints and taking up dope smoking, comissions available on request for very resonable rates to sponsor our next world tour!

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