We have not been too fortunate with the weather in the past few days. We got up to a bleak Tuesday morning and crossed the Cook Straights to the south island with poor visibility and rain for most of the 3 hour journey. The ferry itself was huge and impressive, with a little play area for kids. Lucky for us, because that is all the running the kids did on Tuesday.
We drove off the ferry in Picton, and after a quick visit to the supermarket we headed to the local Top 10 campground. What to say, a bleak day, with the rain not letting up for more than a few minutes at a time. We used up most of our kiddy arsenal, coloring books and crayons, play-dough (plastelina), a DVD, and what not.
Yesterday morning was just as gray, and we ditched our plans to stay in the area and hike around the Queen Charlotte Track. We spent an hour at the Picton Seahorse aquarium, an amateur effort compared to the likes of
After that we headed straight to Nelson, the big town here with over 50,000 inhabitants and a supposedly good vibe. The drive, although wet and rainy at times, was still very impressive, with good views of the bays and inlets of the Marlborough Sound to our right.
At Nelson we stopped for a quick tour of
Today we woke up to a sunny morning, and spent most of the day in the town center, ambling along and enjoying the atmosphere. We had a good lunch at Lambretta, a local place with lots of pictures and models of
Luckily the burst of rain was short and when we got back to the campground we did not have to redo our laundry. We met a nice Israeli family with three kids, the youngest only a bit older than Ron. After a bit of coaxing Ron, the kids started to play together. It’s amazing to see how well Ron can communicate in Hebrew a well. We had dinner with the Marom’s and I even made homemade hummus from chickpeas. (Still need to practice).
Tomorrow we head west to
Good Night,
-Hemi