Nelson

We were really glad to leave Queenstown - "WHERE GRAVITY'S A TOY!!!" as the tagline screams. We spent the next day in Wanaka, where we recharged our batteries, eating and sleeping well and doing some washing and other admin.















We chatted for a while with a lovely German girl in a laundromat and almost secured a lift with her in her campervan up the west coast. But, as Chris pointed out, coming out and asking for something like that is like asking someone on a date. Very tricky unless you're sure you're going to be able to seal the deal. On this occasion she seemed keen - she was enjoying improving her English through our banter about the weather and would probably have appreciated being able to split petrol costs, and it's pretty obvious why we would also have been happy with the arrangement... but after a lingering goodbye with the question hanging in the air, the moment had passed, lost in translation. We got on the Intercity bus the next day.

There are a number of characters we've spotted on our journey who seem to be following a similar path to us. There's an Indian Kim Beazley lookalike (I'm embarrassed to mention him twice on this blog) and his wife, a posing princess for whom every rock, every waterfall, is an opportunity to look like a smouldering mermaid while Beazo clicks away.

There's a very tight lipped, bearded American who is travelling with an equally bearded Japanese man. Both are dripping with expensive camera equipment and attitude. We've worked out that it's true love. Chris and I made the mistake of sitting opposite the Yank at a table at one of the stops. There was still room next to him, and his friend seemed happy enough to squeeze in. But he sighed and huffed until we got up, whereupon he moved to sit opposite his friend so they could gaze into each others eyes. Their matching pastel sports coats were very cute though.

On the trip up from Wanaka there was also a willowy blonde Canadian girl, appropriately called Rose, who was being courted (again appropriately) by a German called Wolfgang. On that journey there was an interloper though - a guy from Colorado (Americans never tell you they are from America because they assume everyone, including those who don't sound it, are also American) called Adam who was sharing a dessert with Rose by the time we hit the afternoon cafe stop, with Wolfgang loitering nearby looking forlorn. When we left them at the Fox Glacier we knew we'd bump into them again somewhere up the coast, and we wondered how this three ring circus would play out. Sure enough, a few days later and many hundreds of kilometres from where we'd met her, we spotted Rose walking along the end of the Abel Tasman track, alone.

We spent an afternoon at the Franz Josef glacier:

and then travelled all the way up the gorgeous West Coast in pristine weather, marvelling at the dramatic mountain scenery. We wended our way through the spectacular Haast Pass and out to the open coastline. We had not completely left the Queenstown vibe behind though. On our bus to Nelson was a group of North Americans who were perplexed by, amongst other things, NZ supermarkets ("But they don't sell Covergirl makeup! I thought they were like Walmart"), roll-on deoderant ("like, who USES that stuff?" - perhaps people who don't wish to spray a big fat hole in the earth's layer every time they need to mask their own offensive odours love), boysenberry-flavoured icecream ("what's a boysenberry - is it like a strawberry?") and Kiwi bus drivers ("what a boring job they have - like, 'oh, there's that tree, AGAIN!'"). I took particular issue with this last one, only because the guy who'd brought our sorry arses up from the deep south had chatted so knowledgeably and lovingly about, amongst other things, the NZ countryside, the political landscape, history, gealogy, agriculture and distance education, while at least one of the twits in question was plugged into a portable Playstation, oblivious. And it was clear he absolutely loves driving his bus. As he said to Chris - how could you not, with scenery as beautiful as this. Our photos prove his point. I can't believe I took this shot:
















We've had absolutely stunning weather since we left the south of the south. And we've hiked like never before - to the top of Bob's Peak, to the "Centre of New Zealand" in Nelson, all around the Franz Josef Glacier and, most spectacularly, we've spent a gorgeous, clear blue (but not sweltering) day on the Abel Tasman track, where we walked for three hours and dipped in vivid emerald water.














On Monday Chris checked his results in a tiny internet cafe in Nelson to discover what most of us knew already, which is that what we're dealing with here is a genius. We celebrated by going to see Borat (we were screaming in a rather unruly fashion at some bits of it - I challenge anyone not to if they go and see that film) at the State Theatre in Nelson (less grand than it sounds).
















We stayed at a gorgeous place called Shortbread Cottage while we were in Nelson, and met some lovely people who heartily cheered for Chris when we told them his results. We chatted about campervanning the North Island (which is what we're up to next) and exchanged details.

We're now in Wellington, which is pleasingly rough and urban with a few crazies - everything thus far has been very orderly and pristine, and a grubby city (if only for a couple of days) is going to make a nice change. More soon.