kjelsty: Nelson

Nelson was a great little, big town. We were at the end of our trip and Glenn was tired of driving. In Nelson we called Diane, a student at the University of Idaho I had spoken to via e-mail. She and a friend of hers, Jack were living in New Zealand for a year and working. We met up with them and they said we could stay with them. This was great because we did have four days left before we flew back to Napier. Instead of driving more we returned or rental car and did a walking tour of Nelson. Glenn found a pick up game one day and I toured the down town museum. We also found a Tia Chi Club down the road from where we were staying so we went and joined a session. It was a different style then the one we do here in Napier but cool to learn a new way. We also toured around to some of the local galleries there are close to three hundred studio artists in the Nelson area. Sheesh!

One of my favorite stops was at the Saturday Market. This was a farmers market as well as a craft market. I went on a buying frenzy at least for me this is pretty unusual. There was just some really cool things so I got a pair of fun pants and some cool shoes.

We also found a small wonderful session at the Maen Fiddler and no I did not spell this wrong. The story is that there is another bar somewhere called the Mean Fiddler. So the owner of this Nelson bar had to come up with a different name thus Maen Fiddler. Bob seemed the one running the session he was there with his wife and daughter both musicians. His wife was from Ireland and a friends of hers were there visiting he was a dancer. So the session included dance as well as music. To top off the evening there was a backpacker in the pub that spoke flemish and had a conversation with Bob's wife. Bob smiled and said to us, "We are putting on quite an event for you two this evening, it is not always like this."

Nelson also has a wonderful beach. We went out and swam one day with Jack and Diane. It has been amazing how different all the beaches are around New Zealand. This beach was a popular spot for Kite Surfing. Nelson was great and we are going to be going back over Queen's Birthday weekend for a folk gathering.

The final shots from the South Island...