I can't believe that we only have one more week to go here! This precious time here has gone quickly and we have filled it with wonderful walks, seeing beautiful scenery, having great meals (lots of slices and coffee), doing lots of new things and repeating things we have loved from being here before and seeing new people.
We have escaped also some very bad weather; snow and freezing temperatures in the areas around Cromwell and floods at the lower half of the North Island. Apart from the first week we have been blessed with sunny, blue skies and warm winter breezes.
So for the last two weeks we have walked and walked and walked and also done lots of Aqua jogging in the local pool and I can now add an Aqua fit class to that too! So fitter we might be but the wonderful food in this area is too great a thing to resist so those pounds I wanted to lose are stubbornly still hanging around!
We pass by this lovely spot on the way to the beach most days. Tahunanui Park as well as having a beautiful beach has rugby and football pitches, a BMX park, a waterslide park, the boating lake, free gym equipment on a 'Fit' trail, a go-cart park, roller skating rink, adventure park, a petting zoo and a special part of the beach and estuary where you can take your dogs. Plus shops, ice cream parlours, a couple of pubs etc on the surrounding streets. Not bad facilities wise then?
We've done so much over the last two weeks that I won't go in to too much detail but there are lots of places that I want to record for myself as well.
One of our many highlights was a trip in to the Abel Tasman national park. We have been twice before on the water taxis and come back by kayak, great fun. But this time we decided to do the scenic run all the way to the tip of the park then come back half way, do a four hour walk then get picked up by boat again. It was an early start to Kaiteriteri and we were on the boat at 9.30 for the trip out to Totoranui via the seals on one of the islands. It is lovely up there. You can actually drive to this part from Golden Bay; there is a large camping site here for any would be travellers.
The trees in the photo above are Plane trees imported and planted by some of the first settlers to this area in 1841/3 so are fully mature and gorgeous. All you could hear up here was birdsong and the sea. We had a twenty minute stop up here then back to Medlands beach to be dropped off.
Nearly all the beaches are deserted at this time of the year and on a sunny day like this one I can't think of a nicer place to be.
The 'bush' walk was great, very up and down in some places which was a hit of a challenge and we had sea glimpses most of the way.
We met some lovely young people on the way noticeably a mixed group of two Colombian girls with a Swiss, Belgian and French group of lads who spoke French to each other and English with the girls. You have to admire young people with their linguistic skills. We had fun crossing the suspension bridge at Frenchs creek, we have kayaked under here before.
It is a very wibbly wobbly bridge! The path up from here had are legs screaming but in the end was worth it and Torrent Bay came in to view later. What a gorgeous beach this is and there are quite a few holiday homes here which were built before they turned it into a national park.
What an idyllic place to live for the summer nothing to do but swim, kayak, mess around in boats, fish and BBQ with friends. I can think of worse things!
As it was low tide here we could miss out a whole chunk of the coastal path and walk across the flats instead which is what we and the young people did although we got wet feet in quite a few places while crossing the estuary. It saved about an hour and a half a walking too!
From here you finally reach Anchorage Bay yet another glorious place and we had two hours here to walk around, sit and eat our lunch and luxuriate in knowing we'd completed a bush walk in this special place and loved it.
We thoroughly enjoyed our special day though for the next day we could hardly move!
Before we went there though we had a great day out at the WOW museum. It is the wearable art museum and vintage car place that blew us away.
The costumes are done for a big yearly show and people from all over the world compete. It originated in quirky Nelson and has now moved to Wellington but the collection, when finished, then gets housed here just outside of Nelson passed the airport on the way to Richmond.
We went round twice with a coffee break in between and it was obviously 'my thing' though Derek liked it too. We also watched last years show in their cinema.
The cars were great too and there were over a hundred of them.
The next show is later in the year so as the exhibit changes every year it; would be good to go again and the show itself can be seen on Utube and is a bit like a fashion Cirque du Soliel.
The day after that we went to the Founders Park at Atawhai which was another nice place to visit though if we had known we would have gone during the week as the weavers and artists are all there then. The place seems to be staffed by expats as most of the places like museums are in the district, all the museums we went in we spoke to expats who have been here for forty years or so!
There were some great exhibits here especially the maritime ones.
Lots of ships in bottles which fascinate me!
We have been to the market in the middle of Nelson a few times and I love going round all the stalls, bought lots of fresh veggies at very cheap prices.
We drove down the Moutere Valley which the locals pronounce Moutrair which was settled by German pioneers. It is very fertile and full of farms, wineries and lots of little townships. It is one of many such valleys in this region. They grow lots of hops here too and there are many micro breweries here. I've never seen hops growing before I came here except on TV.
This was a lovely house with a great old barn next to it but it didn't come out too well on my phone - the photos I'm using for the blog at the mo are all from my phone as I haven't access to my normal computer to download photos from my 'big' camera.
We have been to Mapua several times and had fish and chips on the dock.
We have gone in to Motueka too and pottered around the streets, been out to the estuary, been in the museum to talk to the lovely 'Heritage' ladies in there and found lots of stuff on Derek's ancestors.. They found Brian Lunn for us who is a direct decadent of the first Lunn's who came here on the first boat in 1841 and he is Derek's 8th cousin! We arranged to meet him from there and went back to see him another day armed with lots of stuff from Derek re his English ancestors.
What a lovely chap he is and made us very welcome. He is a mine of information and had so much stuff for Derek to see. I took down lots of notes and took photos of as many documents as I could and we spent one full day recording as much of it as we could but still have lots to do (we haven't had a dull day since then to justify doing it). We came away from there feeling very pleased with ourselves, a bag of oranges from his bushes too and very good to meet a New Zealand rellie!!!
We have found some very nice restaurants to eat in notably Lambrettas which we love and every time we go in to Nelson which is a lot we end up in there for coffee and sometimes some of their wonderful cheesecake. Also he Boat Shed which is on the water near Britannia Heights.
There was a Spanish guitarist in the night we went in which was nice.
Also the Grape Escape over in Appleby which was packed when we went in so we are going back again for lunch sometime this week. (We went back on 26th for a long leisurely lunch and booked a table this time!)
Their carrot cake was to die for! I had the maple and walnut cheesecake the second time and that was even better. They make all their desserts on site 'cos I asked and they all look wonderful so if you ever head this way I would recommend a stop here for lunch.
And it is a really pretty spot.
Think I will stop there for today.
TTFN big hugs x