It rained last night but luckily was only drizzling when we walked through Queens Garden for breakfast. We are staying at an airB and B but the wife is gone and we think the husband forgot its a B and B. At any rate, we had a delightful breakfast overlooking the river and the Queens Garden in the Suter Gallery cafe. Afterwards we looked at the exhibits at the Suter which contained many classic and contemporary pieces from Kiwis as well as artwork from the Nelson Art Society. As was the case with my cousin, these are amateur artists who are quite good and who offer their work for sale. Forrest and I then parted ways. He went to play guitar at two different stores - got in about 2 5 hours playing today to keep those a callouses, and a I took the bus to Tanuhanui to see the Wearable Art Museum. They have a show every year in Wellington where they announce the winners of this competition in which all the materiasl are non- conventional. People made outfits with electrical wire, cords, plastic foam, clock part's etc. It reminded me of Project RunWay when they do the non- conventional challenge. I returned to the city of Nelson and perused the shops and art galleries. Then Forrest and I had a fabulous authentic Italian meal at Baggato where they had just finished making the homemade ravioli and noodles. Early dinner for us and back to our room.
Note: This air B and B is in a great location and has a great bed, but that's about it. I think in nice weather one could relly enjoy the garden and deck, but with the rain, we are pretty much confined to our room. There are two bathrooms we can use- one without entering the house in the laundry room, and the other one in the house. We have generally had good experiences but this has not been our best one. Dan and his Dad are very nice, but it just feels more intrusive.
March 12
We went to Motueka market this morning, but very few vendors showed up due to early morning rain. It had stopped by 8 am, so we walked to a little bakery in town before heading to the Motueka Museum. In this town of about 8000 this little museum was quite good. The night before we had had appetizers at Sprig and Fern and Forrest had one of their craft beers, a Scottish ale on tap. We learned that this building was the home of Harry Hart who had built a bakery and run it from 1925-1970 with help from family members. The original ovens were in the museum along with baking artifacts.Harry had also fought in Gallipoli. The museum also held an exhibit on the Maori in the region and that was very interesting. Just like many of our Native American tribes, many of these iwi ( tribe) joined other tribes over time either through conquest or necessity. There was a timeline beginning in1900 until 1970 noting the rise and fall of the tobacco industry in this region. It completely died out due to economic forces. Our driver this afternoon showed us where the tobacco fields had been and we could see now they are growing hops and have become one of the major industries for all the NZ beers.
While waiting for our Trail Hopper bus we talked with three young people from France and Germany who have been in NZ since October working on a sheep farm. They were also picking blueberries on another farm nearby.
We arrived in Nelson and found our air B and B. Dan is a mussel farmer and his wife is an artist. Dan's Dad is visiting from Dunedin. They were very welcoming. We decided to hike to the center of New Zealand , which is the geographic center of the country. Seriously. On our way we met a couple who spend 6 months here and 6 months in England. They had been retired for 30 years! They had seen 48 of our states in a camper van and have been doing this split between the two countries for the past 7 years. They gave us a ride to the base of the Botanic Reserve. We hiked to the top with our little guide we met on the way. She was 10 years old and was visiting a friend of her Mom's when her Mom told her to go hike the mountain. She had competed in a triathlon that day and was now climbing this large steep hill with great energy. She told us which path to take to get to the top the fastest.😀She asked where we were from and said she wondered if the US and USA were the same country. She was such a sweet girl and for 20 minutes up the hill she told us about her aspirations to be an actress and how she is currently taking classes at Theatre Royal in town. The views from the top were stunning. We could see Abel Tasman, Rabbit island and what looked like a sand bar called Boulder's Bunker. This was caused by a natural geologic feature that looks from a distance like a horizon line. Apparently you can drive out there.
We descended and went through Queens Garden which wound its way around Maitai river. It was beautiful! There were some huge gorgeous trees- Bunya, Campher, Bhutan Banyan, Eucalyptus, and huge fern trees. There were some boys playing in the river pulling up eels which was creepy. Ducks and swans were abundant. From Queens Park we walked through Nelson to dinner at Mac's and enjoyed a great meal.
Note: in this area we noticed that people have letter boxes and then junk mail boxes in front of their houses. Most are free standing or hung on a yard fence.
No comments:
Post a Comment