Nelson was great. We based ourselves in Richmond just outside of Nelson for the week. It was a good strategy since we intended to visit three different places and Nelson was dead centre of the three places. We checked in a trailer park and met a really cool Kiwi-Canadian couple: Josh and Sarah. Sarah is from Edmonton, can you believe it? They were nice people and we had fun with them.
Our first visit was to Lake Rotoiti where we did a hike. The brochure forecast a 5-6 hours hike, it took us 3. Let’s just say that our hiking experience from the Rockies had prepared us well for the hikes we did here so far :) The hike was enjoyable. Hiking here is very different: the trails are super obvious due to the erosion on the ground (as oppose to rocks in the Rockies don’t erode as much thus not marking the trails so easily). Hiking in running shoes is totally acceptable lucky for us cause that is all we brought. But for a real kiwi experience, you’d hike bare feet. We came across a few of them on the trail and it is as natural for them as it is for us to be scraping off frost off the windshield in a minus 30 weather. I tried walking bare feet from the kitchen to the van at the campground and it was hell! Well it was either that or trying hiking in the nude. Yup, during a hike in the Abel Tasman region (our second hiking stop) we, well Gen was head-to-head or head-to-penis with a naturist on his way down on the trail. She was so offended poor girl hahaha! The man was hiking along and was as casual about it as for a kiwi to be bare feet on the trail, it was so funny! Abel Tasman is a National Park in the very north of the South Island. It’s a great region. It was sunny on our first day in the Park, there were no clouds in the sky and the beach was fantastic. We realized we did not swim and beach since Bawley Point in Australia (2nd week in Australia). So we took it really easy on the beach the first day. I went for a walk and saw a penguin on the beach that was really cool. I saw more of them on a hike the next day. Sections of the hike were strolls on the beaches, which was pretty great. At the farthest point we got changed on the beach and went in for a quick dip to refresh ourselves before heading back. What a neat thing to be able to do.
Oh, here’s a sad story: we lost our Italian coffee percolator in Abel Tasman L We’re now limited to instant coffee. Surprisingly, instant coffee is very good here. But not the store brand we bought. I think if we knew instant coffee can be that good, we would had never bought our percolator that we carry around since Sydney.
On the other side, here’s an interesting fact: they make roads to go on any hills and mountains here. To get to the trail head, we were on this gravel road for 10 km where I counted I made 125 consecutive turns. Gen filmed me driving it and there were not one second that my hands were not steering left or right. It was crazy.
The city of Nelson is also pretty. It’s known to be a place where hippies roam the streets and everything and everyone is very “green”. There was a laid back attitude there. Here’s another funny story for you: I bought a pair of board shorts in a store. On the way back, I was removing the tags and stuff and noticed I got someone’s sick pubic hair as a bonus! It was stuck to the velcro ewe!!!! This is when PUREL comes in handy.
Currently we’re on the North Island, in Wellington. We were here before when we rushed down to the south. It’s nice to come back to a place that we’re familiar with. We have our routine here. We know where to sneak in for a hot shower, which beach to go cook/eat at and which street to sleep on. There is a huge camper van culture here. Wellington is my favourite city so far; there are beaches all along the coast, the city centre is nice, Cuba Street is awesome for the multi ethnicity element and Wellington has a fabulous museum (Te Papa Museum). I learned a lot about the Waitangi Treaty issues; there were lots of misleading items and mistranslations in the treaty that saw the Maori (NZ’s aborigines) cheated out of their lands. It’s similar to what we have in Canada with the Natives. I am becoming a lot more aware of the origin of each country and its’ colonisation after learning about the Maori here and the aborigines in Australia. Can’t wait to find out more about the Asian countries in a month. We also enjoyed the free nightly concerts they have at the Botanical Garden. It’s a really cool experience. It’s like “Shakespear in the Park” in Calgary but with music. There was Jazz, Rock and last night was New Soul music. People bring a blanket, a basket of food and a bottle of wine and they just chill out all night.
Gen and I booked all our tickets all the way back to Calgary on November 17th. We met with a super friendly agent in Wellington and she helped us book all of them. We still need to book a few internal flights in Asia ourselves because it is cheaper this way. But the main flights are booked. The rest of this year will look something like this:
· February 7 to Bangkok
· March 6 to Laos or Cambodia
· April 10 to Vietnam
· June 1st to Thailand
· June 15 to Athens (we’ll visit Greece, Croatia, Spain & Portugal)
· August 15 to Lima (we’ll visit Peru, Chile & Brasil)
· November 17 back to Calgary
As you can see, we dropped a few countries from the first itinerary I told you about. It would have been nice to do more countries but we quickly realized we weren’t made of gold. I think one can never save enough money for this but in our case, we had to limit to the above countries.
We now have our visa for Vietnam. That’s one thing less to do on our list J
Tomorrow (Jan 23), we’re heading north from Wellington to Napier, supposedly there are cool hikes leading you to hot springs in that area. After Napier we’ll keep heading up to a place with beaches where you can go dig a hole in the sand then sit in the hot springs like water coming up from the sand. That should be nice.
What I like to know is how the heck is everyone doing at home. What’s new? What’s hot? How are the Flames and Canadiens doing? Is Harper still our Prime Minister? Did we invade any countries recently? Is swimming still the coolest sport in the world? Are we gonna kick ass in Vancouver 2010? Drop me a line, I’m dying to hear from you.
