Nelson, tents and beach

15/11/12
Absolutely hot day and consequently quite exhausting in the car.  We said goodbye to the noisy trucks and cars going over the bridge and have had them replaced here in Nelson by an aeroplane leaving the airport every half hour or so.  Surprisingly it's not as noisy as it was in Blenheim.

Picton: Sounds and boats.  Difficult to capture the
beauty of this harbour on film. 

The trip to Picton was fine and easy and took less than half an hour.  We wandered around for a while checking it out, enjoying the water and the boats - the Interislander in her berth - and the sunshine.  Found a secondhand shop that also sold antiques and it had a huge range of stuff from all sorts of vintages.  Bought a potato masher for a dollar, since we discovered last night that along with the lack of potatoes we didn't have a masher either.  Tempted by some other things, including the bus outside the building that was offered as a trade-in - it was fitted out as a campervan - but managed to control ourselves.  Also found a secondhand bookshop, a very good done, and finished up buying an Ian Rankin that I don't think I've read: Exit Music.  I think it was supposed to be the last Rebus book, but the most recent book by Rankin brings Rebus out of retirement, and also includes the characters from the two Complaints books, who, curiously, come across as different characters in this new book - it's like they're seen as different because we're seeing them through Rebus' eyes.  Consequently we get very little insight into Malcolm Fox in this new book.  I had a bit of a discussion with the proprietor of the bookshop about the way paper books are being taken over by electronic versions; naturally he wasn't very impressed by the latter and thought a monopoly would eventuate and cut lots of people out.  However I think it's a transition time, like it or not, and we'll have to live with it somehow. Books as such don't seem to be going out of fashion as yet.  There was a good secondhand bookshop n Blenheim as well as a very good new books bookshop, staffed by at least five people.

We checked at the info place about just how hilly and winding the Queen Charlotte road was and, on the basis of what they said, decided it was too hilly.  Just as well, as the road from Havelock to Nelson was not at all pleasant to drive on.  Up to Havelock it was fine, running along through a lovely valley (the Rai Valley, I think?) but a few miles after Havelock it climbed up into the mountains.  That wasn't too much of a problem - it was the endless trip downhill again that nearly drove us crazy with its constant twists and turns, and with trying to keep the car from going too fast.  With all the weight on board I don't much trust the brakes to hold us if we have a problem.  When we were coming back from Christchurch after our last trip there, and Celia was driving, the car was doing an awful shuddering thing as we came down the Kilmog, which made Celia very nervous (not to mention me!)

We stopped off in Havelock for lunch near the water, and were joined by a very fluffy cat who just sat beside us without demanding anything, in spite of the fact that we were eating sardines (not on toast, but on pita bread - we'd run out of ordinary bread).

Tahuna Beach, Tahunanui.  You can just see some of the
dozen or so surf kites people were practicing with.

Anyway after our long trip down the neverending hill, we got to Nelson - and began to breath normally again.  We'd decided to stay at the Tahuna Beach motor camp, which turns out to be 54 acres of campervans, tents, cabins, motels and whatever, all within spitting distance of the sea.  It's a good place but when we tried to get the tent up, the wind just wouldn't let us.  We decided to try a different tent site since we were told it didn't matter which site we used but while that was a little less windy, we still had enormous trouble getting the tent to sit properly. The front kept blowing inwards and in general not looking right.  The rest was okay, but the area round the door bent inwards.  Turned out that one of the rods had split badly, so it's not surprising that it wouldn't take the strain.  Celia had already repaired another one on site and we'd got that in place - she'd repaired several split ones before left home - bit in the end the tent was just plain wonky and was going to get wonkier.  We capitulated and hired a cabin instead, which meant taking the tent down again.  At least that was a much quicker job than the two attempts we'd made to get it up!   The cabin is a standard one but in fact is better than the so-called de luxe one we had in Kaikoura.  It doesn't have a sink, which was an advantage at the other place, but it has a fridge and a telly.  It would sleep four if necessary, so we have a choice of beds.

Celia's happy to start heading home after we've been here for a couple of nights.  She's over tenting for the time being, and in fact, given the relative price of the cabins, it's not worth all the hefting and heaving and shoving and back-breaking that the tent takes to get up, just to save a few dollars.  She'd had plans about going into more remote camp sites, like the DOC ones, but that idea went west after we'd been at Waitaki Waters, and had spent some time at Marfells Beach.  I think she's realised that we're getting a bit past all the hassles of camping, although she enjoys cooking on her gas stove - making pikelets on it near Glentunnel and cooking eggs on the side of the road near Makikihi were both highlights.

Now we have to figure out how to get home without too many mountain roads like the one we went on today.  Looks like we can avoid going back to Blenheim, by going down through the middle of the island but I think that road is a winding as well.  Anyway, we'll see how it goes.  We can stop between here and Christchurch and again between Christchurch and Dunedin if we want.   That'll take us through the weekend and into next  week and that'll be enough.   We'll probably stop overnight with my daughter and her family on the way back as well.