Since I blogged last, we have moved out of our flat in Alex (finally!!), Keith has finished working, we have sold almost everything we own (anyone want to buy a car?), and are now on vacation 24/7-for at least the next couple weeks.
We started out from Otautau (The Heart of Western Southland), where Keith spent his last days working, on Saturday morning and by evening we were almost all the way up the west coast in Hokitika. There we got to watch a beautiful sunset and eat half-way descent pizza (I would give just about anything for a real Chicago style deep dish though!). In just a few hours we drove from the cold, to being able to walk along the beach an not freeze!
The next day was another long driving day as we were heading towards Nelson. There were a few familiar sites along the way and the fact the we stopped at Pancake Rocks and I was very happy I didn't suffer from any PTSD induced flashbacks of the ridiculous pain I was in when
we were there last!
After a crazy amount of driving, we finally made it to Nelson! Now is the time for a little relaxing before we start another 3 days of hiking. We started with a crazy huge meal at the House of Ales...and thats kind of where it ended-I could barely walk back to our backpackers I was so full! There we are laying around reading barely able to move by about 8 pm, while all the young folks were just starting the evening-when did we get old?!?!
The next day was a little more exciting with a quick trip to the Center of New Zealand.
And on the a few winieries. We had to practice restraint since we can't just pack our bags full of wine to go to Tonga and there is only so much we can drink in the next couple days. We stopped at
Seifried Winery, which is supposed to be one of the oldest in New Zealand, at
Te Mania where we bought probably the cheapest bottle of really good wine we have since have been in New Zealand and finally at
Neudorf Winery that not only had great wine but also a great place to hang out and have lunch.
At the end of the day we made it to our backpackers
The Barn (one of the best backpackers we have stayed at!)in http://www.barn.co.nz/ and the Able Tasman National Park. We even had a view of the trail from our room!
The plan was to stay the night there, then get a shuttle the next day to the beginning of the track and walk back to our car. It only took us three days and that beat up car never looked so good by the time I saw it again!
No comments:
Post a Comment