Continuing to Catch Up

Shelley is still not getting up here to update the site! So it falls to me (and Shirley’s already complaining!!! ;-)) I’ll have to blast through and give you all the details I can think of, but it is hard to do…

Also, we ARE taking pictures and they will be on the site as soon as we get some developed. Scott has a digital camera, but I’ve only taken a couple of pictures with it….We’ll get some pictures up…..relax…..we are!

Day 4
On the Friday, we were still in L.A. Our tickets to the parks had expired, so we just hung around “Downtown Disney”. In reality, it’s just a few shops, a massive Disney Store and some restaurants. We did sleep in, so we only had about 4 hours of shopping (MORE than enough let me tell you). So, having spent as much money as I would let go, we went back to the hotel, collected our bags, and caught a cab to the airport. This was at about 4:30 and our flight wasn’t until 9:45, but we figured with the terrorist precautions and all, it would probably take awhile to get through. WRONG! We weere through to the gate in about 20 minutes, tops. So we had about 3.5 hours waiting. Oh well, what can you do.

We got on the plane (and I was fairly calm considering I was going to my death), and left a little late. Strangely, Quinn fell asleep right after we took off and slept for 9 hours. Didn’t even pull out the gameboy once! I was surprised! Shelley went to sleep soon afterwards, and Dylan and I watched the first movie (Match Stick Men). After that, we both fell asleep. I was sleeping off and on, and would try to watch whatever was on the screen for a little, but I couldn’t do it. I was surprised that I got a good 6 hours sleep too.

Day 5
The sun woke us up on the 747 somewhere over the South Pacific a couple hours before we landed at Auckland. I have to say I was very surprised I was relaxed as I was. The flight wasn’t GREAT though. A fair amount of turbulence the whole way. Not BAD turbulence, but the plane would shake for an hour at a stretch. We were happy to be in Auckland.

It was about 24 degrees and REALLY HUMID in Auckland. The walk from the international terminal to the domestic terminal seemed a fair bit longer than it really was. Then we have 4 hours sitting and waiting for the next flight. It was really hot and Shelley even went and changed her clothes just to get out of the sweaty ones she had on.

Around noon, we got on a SAAB 340, nice little prop plane that seats about 40 people, and had a fairly uneventful flight to Nelson. It was fairly cloudy, so we didn’t get to see much, but when we got to Nelson, it was clear and sunny. We could at least see “Fairwell Spit” from the plane. Scott, Sam and Leigh were there to greet us nd we drove right back to their place.

After an hour or two of catching up, drinking beer and settling in, Scott was getting jumpy to get us somewhere….anywhere. So we went for a little drive down to Richmond and Nelson, stoping at a couple beaches: Tahunanui Beach just between Richmond and Nelson, and then over to the Rabbit Island beach. The kids went swimming at both of them. No fear of the “cold” water for them!

Day 6
I went for my first drive today and I think I did pretty well. Scott’s truck is a standard, so I had to shift with my left hand (the gears are the same direction as in North America) AND steer on the wrong side of the road; all the while figuring out the bloody round-abouts. The only vaguely serious thing I did was making a right turn off a highway onto a side road, I turned into the right lane. Of course there were three cars there and none of them found the humour in it that I did. I just quietly pulled up on the right shoulder of the road and waited for them to pass (I was giggling). For some reason, when I make a right turn (across traffic) I feel the need to look behind me to the right before I make the turn. Not ahead to the right. It’s a VERY strange sensation.

So, we went into Nelson proper and walked up and down Trafulger Road. Pretty little town. Feels vaguely Banff like in that the street is lined with shops on all sides. Around lunch we picked up some fish and chips and headed to a local park to eat it. Now, the funny part. Scott and the kids were traipsing through a bamboo stand (it was a Japanese Garden), when Scott let out a whoop and came charging out of the woods with something on a stick. It was a set of women’s leather underwear (size LARGE) and a cat-o-nine-tails. That’s right, leather undies and a whip). Heh heh! Nice introduction to Nelson! So now the kids are running around Scott and Leigh’s with aleather whip chasing each other. Much Fun!

We finished the day by driving up to Mapua for a ice cream cone.

Also, the kids have been playing a lot of Croquet; and their good at it! They win as often as an adult! Or does that mean the adults suck? I don’t know!

Day 7
The family went off solo today and headed west (well, west and north) up to Motueka just to see what we could find. We had lunch in Mot, and did a little bit of Christmas shopping there. It’s a pretty quaint little town, but nothing particularly special. From there we went up to Kaiteriteri. A beautiful spot where you can catch water taxi’s up into the Abel-Tasman Park. We definately WILL be doing that a little later in the trip. It gets reallt beautiful up there, and the water is VERY clear. As usual, the kids were swimming, although Dylan was doing it under a little duress. I think it was a bit cold for him.

A good day and NO little driving mishaps despite being “solo”. I actually asked Shelley to call out signs as she saw them because I was concentrating on staying on the road. It worked well! Scott also has us chanting a little mantra: “Look right, stay left, look right, stay left”. It works!

Day 8
We went a little bit further afield today, east and south this time. Dylan wasn’t feeling good today, so he stayed back at the house. Another reason for that is that he and Shelley are going with Sam to tonight’s midnight showing of “LOTR: Return of the King”. He want’s to be ready for that! First to see it anywhere in the world!

So, Scott took Shelley, Quinn, Sam and myself four wheeling on the back road to Pelorus Bridge. It was great fun! Very high pass, great wilderness, high windy road. It’s not really “four wheeling” but a normal car certainly couldn’t get through. We had a meat pie lunch there and then went around to Havelock, a mussel farming port and down to Renwick where we stopped at a winery for a rest. Huge vinyards! I mean HUGE. They just go on forever and ever. It’s very flat there, but the mountains are nearby. Very southern B.C. like. It was a very comfortable place.

From there, we went around to St. Arnaud and stopped at the Wildlife Reclamation Park. They’re trying to kick all the “non-indigenous” animals out of the area so the native animals can come back. Very nice park. We went for an hour or so walk there.

Now here we are. Back at home base haing been QUICKLY around the top of the South Island. The thinking behind these trips is to find out what we want to do more of. I think in the days ahead, we will be planning an overnight trip up to Takaka to the North West to see the Wild West Coast, a water taxi trip into Abel-Tasman Park, and larger three day trip down to Kaikoura, Hanmer Springs, maybe Westport and back. In reality, we could probably spen the time here for three weeks….