After Clare’s early morning wine session, I then drove us up to Nelson, she did have about 20 tastes of wine! Nelson was nice, we had a little wonder around town seeing the sites, visiting the jewellers that made the Lord of the Rings, rings – so expensive, then a few other interesting shops nearby. As usual hungry again so we treated ourselves to a fast food fix and just as we were about to set of our car decided not to start… hmm very confused as we was only using it about 20 minutes ago so surly couldn’t have been the battery… Had to call the AA at $100 cost (unless the fault wasn’t ours!) and very soon after they arrived very nice guy that came out said he would write-off the battery as he couldn’t be sure if it was us or just that the rental company had stuck in a very old battery, Brilliant money back in the bank! Off we go again now towards the Golden Coast which is as far north as you can go in the South Island. We managed to get to as far as a town called Colingwood which was actually perfect for the next day so we found somewhere near the beach on a quiet street to stop for the night. Next day we got woken by cars arriving as loads of people go Mussel picking when its low tide. It was really impressive sitting there looking out as far as you can see with no sea in sight then watching how fast the tide came in as we had a cooked breakfast on the beach in the sun!
We packed up before we got washed away by the incoming tide and headed North, getting to the tip was good till we found out the only way to get on it was with another expensive trip – something about a protected land, so we ruled that out and had a walk along the beach to the start of the tip and then headed to a huge sand dune beach nearby which was amazing until Clare slid in the sand and dropped her camera… Sand completely killed it and with the big camera only taking pictures when it decides to we had a bit of a problem! Next Day we were meeting up with Clares Uni friends Chez, Gemma and Rudi, south of Abel Tasmin so we had a bit of a journey back and decided to do half now and the rest in the morning, just in time to meet up for the day. Seeing people you know on a really beautiful sandy beach the other side of the world seemed very surreal but really nice wish it could have been longer. Clare chatted and Rudi and I went for a wonder over the rocks. Back on the beach we all swapped traveling notes that I’m sure will be brilliant help later on and the girls had a few pictures to remind us off the nice day! We head off in the same direction before parting ways again as we headed for the port at Picton. Arriving late as usual via a beautiful scenic route Charlottes pass (I think thats what its called) We stopped alongside the road again and got some shut eye ready for what was the most disgusting smelling boat we have ever been on – Avoid BlueBridge Ferries at all costs! Bring on the North Island!
Pictures from Nelson and Golden Coast are here.
The pictures from Abel Tasmin and Picton are here.
We’re still putting the odd new video on the video page but you can find them all on http://www.vimeo.com/claresteel.
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