#33 - Nelson ....the sunniest city in NZ

                                                   TYPICAL NEW ZEALAND TOURIST

Less than three hours from Carters Beach, but still hard driving over the Lewis Pass, up and down, in and out, poor Steve, we arrived in Nelson. Where??? 

Nelson, the sunniest town in NZ, with 320 days of sun a year. Easy to find the town and our hotel; not quite as easy to find great things to do. We checked in to The Sails, the #1 accommodation on Tripadviser, aka everyone's new travel bible, especially if you click to sort the reviews best to worst for 'mature couples' ( so sad ).

But the room was good and the owners quite helpful with advice, including a dinner reservation on a Sunday, when apparently most of the "good" places are closed.  And speaking of what is open when, it seems that we may not have done quite enough research to understand these things. I guess like many Americans, we simply assumed everywhere is a 24/7 culture now and museums etc., if they close, are closed on Monday or Tuesday. Ditto for restaurants. Not so. Sunday's is still a quiet day everywhere here and in wine regions, even in the heart of their busy season, dinner is served either only on the weekends or maybe Thursday too.

We didn't unpack, even though the two night rule coulda shoulda applied. We are finding that so many hotels have great showers, great design and even decent closets but it seems big drawers may be a thing of the past and living out of suitcases is the new normal. Each time that happens, it seems the things I need are at the bottom. The off season clothes on top and something important, left in the trunk of the car.

( also, almost all NZ hotels seem to have a full kitchenette- 2 burner hob, dishwasher, dishes, pots, pans, glasses, nice wine glasses, etc...2 coffee pots, and a kettle for tea...enough to live there full time...so NO WONDER there's NO ROOM for set of drawers for clothing...!! .....Steve )

We headed out to the CBD for a town walk but most things were closed- which I get on a normal Sunday, but this is, as they say, only five sleeps til Christmas! Where was everyone? We meandered enough to figure out that Nelson, although the perfect driving stop before going on to the North Island, was a pretty sleepy place with few attractions. The highlight of the walk was a stop to watch lawn bowling ( a huge deal in Oz and NZ ) and a walk through beautiful gardens. Even when asking a local what to do, the answer was 'just enjoy the scenery'. So we rejiggered out thoughts on how to spend our time in Nelson (the serendipity of independent travel) and decided to get some maintenance done and some good eating in.

Our dinner at the Boat Shed was perfect - think upscale, very upscale Smitty's. A real boathouse feel, over the water, we sat on the porch, watching the sunset, Pinot noir, seafood chowder, raw local salmon and finally, crayfish!  It was high tide, which means the water was actually up to the docks, as opposed to low tide which creates large, long tidal mud flats twice a day! The tide swings about three and a half meters between low and high - think about what that would look like on the bay in Margate or Ventnor!

   HIGH TIDE IN NELSON

   SAME BOAT, SAME PLACE, AT LOW TIDE

Monday promised full on sun and hot temps, so we decided to do the one hour drive to Havelock, the greenshell mussel capital of the WORLD.  

Another hour of mountain driving....and we arrived in a very tiny town, Havelock, on the Pelonus River, part of Marlborough Sound. Our research told us The Mussel Pot was the best lunch in town. The courtyard was shady and the Sauvignon Blanc calling to us with the Mussel Sampler for two. We had smoked and marinated, tempura and steamed and even three kinds of grilled mussels from bacon and cheese, to wine and herbs to sweet chili sauce. 

Now I know we can get frozen green lipped mussels at home but apparently Greenshell mussels are trademarked, more like the French appellations for wine or champagne. You cannot call anything Greenshell unless it comes from right here in this part of NZ. Now we didn't have a ruler but Steve measured these against his hand and each mussel went from the top of this middle finger down to the middle of his palm, which I figure is about six inches! And they were delicious and tender and sweet.

Since this was to be our mussel day, our post lunch activity was.....a boat trip, The Greenshell Mussel Cruise headed out on the sound, went to a mussel farm and, yep, cooked more mussels for us to eat!  We had a skipper, a cook and a tour guide for about 14 of us. We made some single-serving friends, a great couple, he British, she Malaysian, living in Singapore and traveling for the holiday with their two preteen daughters. We enjoyed hanging out on the bow chatting and sharing our NZ adventures, giving advice about where we had each been that the other was headed. 

Monday night found us too full to have a dinner, so we opted for a movie instead. Not much of a choice in Nelson, especially at Xmas or if you are an adult. The Bond movie was the right time....and definitely the worst one ever made. 

Tuesday found us up and checking out, me having a touch-up, and Steve touching-up the paint on the rental car...before we headed to Blenheim for just one night before we hop on the ferry early Wednesday to cross the choppy waters to Wellington on the North Island. In a way, it seemed silly to drive 90 minutes to Blenheim, but we figured it would give us a chance to visit a few of the wineries so famous for Pinot Noir and Rieslings and shorten our drive to the ferry in Picton to only 25 minutes the next day.

Although it is not as much fun to visit wineries where you can only taste and not put a few bottles in your car to take home, we still enjoy seeing the architecture (which is very low key all over Australia and New Zealand at the vineyards) and having a lunch or cheese plate in a garden. We had time to hit four places, including one that is sold in the states, Cloudy Bay.

We picked up one good bottle of late harvest dessert wine since it is small and easy to pack and another one of Mantua Pinot 2013 that we can have while we are traveling.

We'll hit Bleheim proper tonight for a light dinner, say goodbye to the beauty of the South Island and head north tomorrow for the 'big Capitol of Wellington'.

Our family is a bit scattered this holiday season with Spencer headed south to Savannah and Shelby in London celebrating her engagement with a party at the Kings...we are so jealous and wish we could be there! 

But at least, for this trip, we came armed with a cell phone along with our iPad, so keeping in touch is easy, even if calculating the time difference is not. There a quite a few texts or voice mails on my phone at 5am! Glad my phone is set for sleep from 11pm to 6am wherever I am!

It is hard to believe we have only ten more days in Oceania before we head to Hawaii. I know once we are there and back in the USA, it will stop feeling like a far away vacation. I know many of you who stay in touch with us by reading this blog cannot even imagine packing up for two months and hitting the road, moving around, hopping on planes and ferries and into cars, piling up the kilometers. But in reality, the planning takes time, the execution is a breeze. As long as there is a good internet connection to keep  transferring money into your account hooked up to pay your bills, it's a piece of cake.....especially for me, since that's exclusively Steve's job.