Saturday, 13th January 2018
We woke up to another day of rain. All through the night I heard the rain falling and in my subconscious I was thinking – good let the rain fall now and it will be dry by the morning – but no such luck – it is now 11.30 am and we have had constant rainfall. At Breakfast, David, the hotel owner informed us that that this weather will continue for the next 10 days! Anyway he made our breakfast of eggs and bacon and when he asked us how we would like our eggs, we both said “sunny side up” and both of us thought : well if we cannot have the sun outdoors then we’ll have it on our breakfast plates – stay positive!!!!
To add to our grievance, we found out that Invercargill will be enjoying sunny warm weather this weekend with temperatures reaching 30 degrees – and we only left Invercargill a few days back – when it was raining as well!
Anyway, we had all the time to catch up with our emails, social media and other stuff before attempting to go to the Saturday market. By the time it was dry enough to go for our walk into town, it was well gone 13.00 and of course the farmers’ market would have finished by then. We took our map with us but what should have been a 10 minute walk to the town centre, it turned out to be more than half an hour as we had walked along a totally different direction – along the industrial harbour – until we were made aware that we should turn around to reach the city centre……..
Nelson city has a large population of some 47,000 residents and what with the tourists around, we got the impression of a busy but holiday type of town. Also there is a beach close to the city centre – Tahuna Beach – however we only saw this yesterday when we were driving through town to get to our hotel and then it was low tide. Anyway when we got to the city centre there was lots of bustling around – lots of high street shops but also lots of cafe’s situated in the old 1 storey houses that are still standing. The first settlers here came from Europe in 1842 and as we could note when we saw all the names on the 1914 Great War memorial, most of the people who lived here in the beginning of the 20th century were all of Anglo Saxon origin.
At the top of the High Street – Trafalgar Street, we came to wide stairs leading to the art-deco Christ Church Cathedral.. We did not visit this cathedral as it was closed and anyway we were told that the best time to visit is when a service is on as the organist and choir produce beautiful music and song…….
By the time we had wandered around town, we saw that the clouds were gathering again and we were told that there would be a thunderstorm coming up later in the afternoon. So we did not dare risk getting caught in the rain and started making our way back to the hotel. We had wanted to visit the Founders’ Heritage Park, but we will do this tomorrow when we are on our way to Blenheim.
Before getting back to the hotel, we stopped at the Anchor Inn for a beer and a wine – I was dead beat and when I checked my steps App, we had walked some 15.000 steps and 10.5km!! An achievement!! Back at the hotel we had an hour to relax and freshen up before we went off for dinner. Tonight we went to the restaurant in the old harbour – Styx – and this was a very good choice even though we had to wait a bit as the kitchen was very busy. I ordered linguine with seafood which was delicious while Gerry had the Johny Dory fish with vegetables and potatoes gratin – I tasted the fish and this was really delicious!! And most important of all, the sun came out this evening and we could watch the sun set into the low clouds – I’m keeping my fingers crossed that tomorrow will turn out to be a good sunny day and that the weather forecast is totally wrong!!
Back at the hotel, had time for a drink before getting ready for bed. We are getting accustomed to the Kiwi ways – by 10 pm the streets are really quiet and everyone is back at their own homes or hotels…….. Not much going on at night……
Well tomorrow we will be using the car again as we will be driving to Blenheim and the day after we will be crossing over to the North Island – time is now going real fast……Good night all xx
