We arrived in Nelson on Friday. Had a beautiful drive over from Picton. We spent Thursday doing some wine tasting in the Blenheim/Marlborough region, and found some really nice Pinots (not our usual choice) and a few very good Chardonnays (my usual choice). We have enough wine to get us at least back across the channel to the North Island. And we scored a great room for one night while in Picton. After popping into the first decent looking motel near the harbor – the manager said “didn’t you know it’s Easter Weekend – don’t you have a reservation anywhere?” I thought “rut row”. So she made a couple of phone calls for me, and sent us across the street to the Beachcomber Inn. I’ll be darned if the last room available wasn’t on the first floor overlooking the harbor with 2 private balconies. And it didn’t cost us anything ridiculously more than what we’ve been paying all around the island. We couldn’t have done that good if we had planned it!

In Nelson today we just wandered around a bit, and went to the Saturday market for some fixins. The fruits and vegetables are so much cheaper in the local farmers markets around here – and extremely expensive in the stores. In fact, eating out in NZ is extremely expensive – so we are cooking about half of our meals in our room, which most have had some form of kitchenette. We also did a geochache this evening that took us to one of the most well preserved historic streets in NZ – and it was just around the block from us. The historic area went for about 3 blocks with cute little cottages on both sides built in the 1860’s. We would have never discovered it had we not done the geocache. Each cottage had a unique name, and of course an address which was then plugged into a formula that gave us the coordinates for the next and final location of the geo cache. It took us a few blocks up the hill to the cathedral – which is absolutely beautiful. We are probably going to try and catch an evensong tomorrow evening there – the organ is massive and I am anxious to hear it. We also scoped out where the Catholic Church is and the time of the Easter service for tomorrow morning.

So we are starting to slow down some – getting a bit worn out from being on the road so much and dragging bags in and out of hotel rooms. The South Island had been full of really beautiful scenery, friendly kiwis, and we have really enjoyed it, but we are ready to get back north and see how things are progressing with Orcinius. We take the ferry back to Wellington on Monday, then we will gradually take our time getting back to Whangarei – with a few days in Auckland, and maybe a visit to some caves along the way. All for now!