A Slow Day Down South

Our day started bright and early, as we had to head down to Auckland for our flight. We had coffee and toast with Bruce as we did some drying of a load of laundry. We did the final touches of packing and bid farewell to Louie (the dog), Big Kittie (one cat) and Little Kittie (the other cat). It turns out it was raining, but it was one of the more gentle rain's I've ever seen. Lucky for us our plans for the day were mostly travel...

Our drive to the airport was unexciting in terms of traffic, but the views (despite the clouds) continued to impress. As we arrived back at Auckland Airport, it had returned to being hot and sunny. The airport had to have been one of the easiest airports ever. We checked ourself in and walked a good hundred steps to the gate. No security or anything. A bit disconcerting, I'll admit, but nice in a way too.

The flight itself led to some good views of mountains and coasts, and with very little turbulence we landed ourselves down in Nelson. On our way out of the airport we picked but a bunch of guidebooks/pamphlets and took some time to make a general plan. People are so nice in New Zealand! While we sat talking a security personnel offered directions and tips. He gave us some local activities as well as a contact to shuttle around. Turns out something held up his friend who does shuttling and he offered us a ride, showing us where some of the sites were and dropping us off at the information center.

At the information center we booked ourselves into a hostel (technically a backpackers) and also got MANY more tips on how to spend our time on the south island. We checked in easy enough and then Margaret decided to repack. She looked though her bag to make some cuts of unnecessary things, and then we went and bought her a new bag while exploring the heart of Nelson. We had dinner at a 623, a local chain of...taverns? Anyway, we each had one of their house made beers and I had more Green-Lipped Mussels. Oh they are so tasty!

As we ate we finished up our plans for this island, but you'll have to keep reading to learn them. After dinner we tried walking up to the beach but discovered that the tide had come in and washed it all away. We went back and spent the evening in the hostel talking and playing cards with 2 guys from England and a girl from Idaho. A pretty fun group in all.

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