Tuesday 27th January 2009

Our last night at the Bakers Lodge Backpackers in Motueka, the gateway town for the south part of the Abel Tasman National Park. We have been taking advantage of the gloriously hot and sunny weather to not just fill the day but (naturally) eat our evening meal in the sunny courtyard of the hostel whilst carrying out in-depth research into the local wines (and beers; believe it or not you can get Wychwood beers (a Witney brewery) here). We enjoyed a scenic drive over from Picton, the roads are so easy, they even drive on the left, however the direction indicators, for some reason are on the right whilst the windscreen wipers are on the left. I keep turning one wipe at junctions! Three cars constitute a traffic jam here. A brief stop in the town of Havelock. This is the green-lipped mussel capital of the world; there is a restaurant with a huge pot of mussels on its roof in the centre of town. We assume, as passers by appeared not to be gagging that they were not real! Of course, you have to try them - rather good; a bit meatier than our home-grown ones (but as Steve will point out Waitrose sells NZ mussels if you wish to try them!) We stopped for a break in Nelson reputedly the sunniest place in NZ- it was on Sunday!; to be mugged by a seagull after our lunch in Rutherford Park named after a son of the city who split the atom.Then onto Motueka which must have the longest high street ever; you could land a plane on it! Yesterday, we walked a segment of the Abel Tasman long-distance path. We caught a water taxi which dropped us off some 20k from the car andthen enjoyed the walk back through the bush, with views of golden sand and turquoise sea. We stopped for a swim to cool off en-route - the afternoon temperatures were scorching.

Today we took a drive to the Golden Bay area and visited the PuPu springs, there is a longer Maori name but we think that has a certain ring about it. Amazing place with freshwater springs bubbling up in the purest water in the world (except Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica). Also the Wainui waterfall where local lads (still on summer hols) were trying hard to drown themselves. The day rounded off with a visit to "The Dodgy Ref" sports bar for a glass of Monteith's finest.