Nelson and ships in bottles

16/11/12
Currently the plan is to leave for Murchison tomorrow, spend the night there, and then go to Hanmer Springs for a night and then to our daughter's for Monday night .  After that we may just drive straight home.  Celia didn't sleep well last night as the mozzies that bit her in Picton had left their mark and she was very itchy.  I didn't think I'd been bitten but I noticed, about half an hour ago, that I had three bites. Yet none of those were itchy at all.  I slept pretty well, even though I went to bed about 9.30 and in spite of Celia tossing and turning and going to the loo and reading the iPad under the blanket.

Took us a while to get off the ground this morning because we needed to get the tent tidied up after it was bundled in the car yesterday and the car itself needed some sorting out - something that happens every few days.  We then went grocery shopping as we were running out of some essentials, and then went onto the Founders Park which isn't far from here,  Celia had wanted to go to Högland's glass factory - in fact it had been one of the things she was coming for and then we discovered it was closed for major repairs.  She was quite disappointed, I think. We'd been there last time we were in Nelson, and really enjoyed it.

However Founders Park was well worth a visit.  Celia's convinced it's where the wedding reception was held for a wedding we came up to Nelson for about fourteen years ago, and she could be right, though I don't really remember it at all. The reception would have been the big building called the Granary [picture above], but again it didn't look particularly familiar.  The Park has some lovely old buildings in it, and early in the piece we got into a fun conversation with the people in the bakery shop: the guy is from the States, the woman from Hounslow, and the younger bloke just got on with baking, throwing a laugh or a word in occasionally.  The Cooper who works in the Park was there at the time with another older guy and they'd obviously already been having a bit of a laugh together.  Made the visit start off well.  There weren't many other people working today, but it's possibly too early in the tourist season.

We really enjoyed the Park.  The buildings are lovely, and well preserved, and there are surprises around every corner.  Some of the collections are still in the process of being cleaned up, but there are others that have had a lot of work put into them.  One of these was the vast array of ships in bottles - it's claimed to be the biggest collection of these in the Southern hemisphere.  Some of them are outstanding,  such as the enormous bottle that has fourteen separate sailing ships inside it [see photo] or the ship inside a light bulb.  There are also fascinating crib boards made in the shape of ships, and some enormously detailed sailing ships (not in bottles).

It's another very hot day, alleviated at least by a bit of a breeze.  We're not sure we could live here in the high summer.  Both of us were worn out by all the walking round the park, me because it was all strolling, and I don't find strolling does me much good.  I'm better if I'm striding out and getting my legs moving.  I get very stiff otherwise.  Celia's ankles are swollen so she's uncomfortable from that too.  A huge bunch of school kids arrived at the Tahuna camp in the evening and took over the cabins opposite us.  Thankfully they're not staying on our side, especially the one who screams every few minutes.

3rd Holiday Post

11th Nov, 2012

I missed writing anything for a couple of days because we were at my number three daughter's place, with her family.

We got up on Friday morning - still in Geraldine at that stage - and there was a drip coming off the tent in the front section, though it wasn't raining.  Turned out it was moisture running off the upper part of the door opening.  When my head touched the roof the condensation began to drip as well.  Celia was concerned about what it would be like in the rain, which is forecast for next week, but we dried the tent out in the sun in the end, and we'll have to see how it all works out.

We had breakfast in the camp kitchen and talked for some time to a young man from Idaho who is cycling around the country for three months.  He was going to Fairlie that day, a mere 80 kilometres.  Later in the day I spoke to a bloke who works for one of the electricity companies.  He was lying on the pebble shore in the Rakaia Gorge having his lunch.  He didn't think that long cycling days like that we're much of an idea since you had your head down all the time and didn't see much.  Apart from being exhausted by the time you got to your destination.  Anyway the young man had obviously been enjoying the trip.  He works in IT so can take three - or it might have been five months - off to tour.

After leaving Geraldine we weren't entirely sure that we'd taken the right road - we wanted the scenic route that goes through Glentunnel - but while we were stopped on the side of the road admiring the wonderful mountains, in the near distance, presumably the Alps, a man in his thirties drove up and stopped to ask if everything was all right. He assured us we were on the right track and that we could get petrol in Mayfield, which turned out to be only up the road.  I'd been a bit concerned that we wouldn't make it before we found a petrol station, having forgot to get petrol in Geraldine, so I was grateful for his concern.

After getting petrol in Mayfield, we stopped outside the village's Memorial Hall for a cup of tea, under the shade of an ancient tree - it was a wonderfully hot day - and Celia went for a trek to find the toilets. Though advertised as being close by this turned out to be much more difficult than the sign suggested.

A photo of the Rakaia Gorge as you approach it from the South.
It's a bit hard to get the whole picture of it; as usual I thought I'd
taken more photos than I had!

Our next stop was the Rakaia Gorge itself but Celia didn't feel much like walking at that point because it was so hot and her ankles had swollen somewhat with the heat and she was rather weary - neither of us have been sleeping well: at Geraldine the lights are kept on in the camping grounds all night and there's no real darkness as such. And, as I mentioned previously, the birds like to start singing loudly around 5 am. Anyway the Gorge was a beautiful vast open area with a surprising section of natural erosion where the cliffs had fallen away (the electricity worker said they'd been like that as long as he could remember though they looked like a relatively new scar).  Two bridges cross the two streams of the river coming into the Gorge, along with various other trickling creeks. Not much shelter there so we moved on, and anyway we couldn't light the gas there to make our lunch because of fire restrictions.  We eventually stopped on the south side of Glentunnel in a still unsheltered rest area, got the gas cooker out and made pikelets.   We used the golden syrup packs for flavour that we'd got when all the family went to MacDonald's a couple of weeks ago when the Christchurch family were down in Dunedin.  (One of these packs, the one that got left over, decided to trickle all over the inside of a bag of soups and meat flavourings, leaving everything sticky as.)  Drove on towards ChCh, passing my daughter's old place in Glentunnel, stopped for an icecream and milkshake in Darfield, and drove to my daughter's.  Greeted effusively by the kids and it was full on ever after!

Yesterday we took them out twice because, in part, my daughter had her first University exam for this semester, and in part because it was less exhausting outside than in!  Went to the Botanical Gardens which neither of us had ever been in much before and had a lovely open air time.  We didn't have the smallest of the three with us at that point because he went off to a birthday party with his dad, but on the second trip out, to the park along near their house, we had him as well.  He's as cuddly and smiley as he was in Dunedin, and talks full bore.  His sister, the middle child, who's only five and three quarters, is like a seven or eight year old...very sharp and bright.  Her big brother's no slouch either, so it's like being a house of super brains.  Celia showed my daughter's partner the book we'd got in Geraldine but even he was stumped by the first puzzle in it, although he picked up the idea of the puzzles straight away, as you'd expect him to do, and was soon doing them with ease.

We met up with our friend Heather for a meal last night at the Westfield mall in Riccarton, along with a couple from Dunedin who were up for a weekend of celebrations at their old church; it didn't seem as though they were having much celebration, though; all a bit dry by the sound of things.  Good to catch up with Heather; we'll see her again today for a family lunch celebrating her 60th birthday.  From there we went to see our dearest friends, people who used to live in Dunedin, but haven't done for many years. Within minutes of arriving we found ourselves invited to babysit their house at Christmas, which we were happy to do.  Their daughter arrived for a while with all four of her kids, which quickly demolished any sense of tidiness around the place, and then we watched an episode of Doc Martin on TV One. It turned out to be one we'd all watched on Prime previously, but proved surprisingly re-viewable.  Some viewing of photos from the last overseas trip and then back to my daughter's.

More on Parc Guell

The gatehouse is out of a fairy tale; the house opposite is a like the gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel - and has an enormous turret on top. A sweeping balcony further up the hill gives a wonderful view of the city, and is decorated with mosaics in every colour. And of course the edge is wave-like. Further up the hill again is a kind of walk made from stone pillars. But being designed by Gaudi, they’re made from stones of all shapes sitting on each other, and seemingly barely holding together.
The other house that was completed is slightly more ‘normal’ but only slightly. There is a long stone corridor with more of Gaudi’s leaning columns - and built onto these are all sorts of statues, some very defined, some only just creeping out of the rock. Across from there is the area beneath the balcony (when I say balcony, I’m talking about something that’s at least half an acre), in which the usual round columns you’d see in most places appear - but they’re everywhere. And between them, on the ceiling, are large plates of mosaics, not set into the ceiling but hanging from it.
The man must have had a wonderful sense of humour as well as design. Though how he persuaded some people to take up his ideas is something I’d like to know! Maybe the Spaniards are more open to quirkiness than other people.

Royal Norfolk

Long day today. Didn’t even sleep in as we have been because our hosts were having a dinner party tonight, and we needed to help get things moving. Not that I contributed much, but Celia made two quiches in record time, and generally organized other things in advance of the meal tonight.

But we also had to be out by 8.45 because our niece and her husband were taking us to the Royal Norfolk Show. This event has been going in some form since the mid 1800s, and has occupied it present space of some 375 acres. There are a number of permanent buildings, but today the place was loaded with tents and marquees and open-air rings (the largest would be two or three acres on its own, I suppose).

I had in mind that it would be like the A&P show that we have in Dunedin, which is a bit of a dud these days, as far as most people are concerned. Not so this show. Over 105,000 people attended last year, and judging by the number of people there today – wall-to-wall they were – that figure would have been surpassed. The weather was great, for a start, and though it threatened to rain at one point, it never did. Apparently last year the people selling raincoats made a killing!

Of course there were farm animals galore, including great hulking bulls and their cows and calves; a bunch of geese being herded by a sheepdog around several groups of schoolchildren and up and over a bridge; huge pigs; owls, ferrets, and you name it.

Everybody and his uncle was there selling stuff, and in the food building they were giving away samples of food in a way I’ve never seen at any of the shows in Dunedin. You could have had a taste of practically everything that was on display – we tried out quite a bit ourselves.

Our relatives paid for us to have an excellent meal presented by the Catering School, and we sat at a table which included one of the vice-presidents of the Royal Norfolk, his wife and son.

There are several entrances to the grounds, each of them leading to a car park connected to one of several main roads in the area, so that you can come in from Dereham, or Wymondham, or Norwich itself. The car parks were expertly handled by a large team of mostly young people. You wouldn’t want to forget where you parked your car, however. The car park we were in would have held a couple of thousand cars, I’d think.

There are a few photos of the facilities here.