Sorry for taking so long to update - blame dial-up internet!

For the first ten days in Jan I stayed with a couple I met in Auckland who invited me to stay with them should I ever pass through Nelson - well, I passed through Nelson :D

They were extremely kind and showed me all over the top of the South Island, all the way from Golden Bay to Picton and Blenheim. :) I had a fantastic time!

First we went to Takaka, an arty sort of town that doesn't miss any opportunity for artistic expression, and golden bay - a scenic area. On the way we also saw Pupu Springs, which, despite the name, is actually the clearest water in the world. Apparently the second clearest is in Antarctica!

We went across to Blenheim and Picton, saw Sir Peter Jackson's collection of working light aircraft, a lot of which seem to be (incredibly) the only ones left in the world! If you were wondering what he spends his money on, that will be it :) Picton is a town with a sunny disposition, a paddling pool for kids on the waterfront and the main harbour for the ferries from North Island to saunter in to.

On one day I went to WOW - the world of wearable art museum (WOW started in Nelson before moving to Wellington when it got bigger) - unfortunately (but not surprisingly) I couldn't take pics in there, but you can in the associated classic car museum, which sounds boring but is actually good because they have framed all the cars in terms of films.

We also took a trip to Founders Museum (yep, if you're thinking they did a heroic amount of ferrying me about to look at things, you'd be absolutely right!) which is an outdoors museum with heritage buildings that have been physically moved there, or else replicas of buildings of interest that form a little village.

I also checked out Nelson's cathedral on the way to Christchurch, which is where I am at the moment. :) Whew, sorry about the lengthy post...