GOODBYE TO SOUTH ISLAND

Nelson was to be our last port of call before we left south island and returned to Te Puru. We checked into the Amber Court Motel and set off to explore the area. There's plenty to see and do in the city but we wanted R & R after 3 weeks travelling, so we headed west for the coast.

Rabbit Island:
Highway 60 runs through some lovely scenery, big on sea views, littered with vineyards and crafts and galleries. In the past 3 weeks we'd sampled a couple of bottles of Rabbit Island white so decided to have a look at the place!
Rabbit Island with a lovely sandy beach.....

and friendly birds.

And Steve finds a green lipped mussel on the beach....

....before almost being caught asleep again.

Then on to Mapua... for lunch. The 'Rough Guide' says 'There's not much to Mapua' but they're wrong.

There's a gorgeous harbour.......

.....and lots of galleries and small shops to wander round... Not sure about the Maori spirits that we would be blessed with....

Another 7kms. on and we reached  Motueka where we found a long sand bar that we just had to explore....

We sunbathed on it for about an hour -our very own private beach with only one other person seen in all  that time.

These lovely birds made a load cry when we came near them - clearly we had invaded their home....

Views on the road from Nelson to Picton via Queen Charlotte Sound.

The motel recommended the Scottish restuarant over the road (McDonalds) but sensing our lack of interest they suggested an alternative English pub called the Smugglers.  We didn't have our pirates' costumes with us but we braved the threatening guns at the entrance to order an excellent .... and ENORMOUS meal of 'Walk the Plank' (lamb shank) and 'Succulent Swine' (stuffed pork loin).

March 11th had arrived amazingly quickly. The hire car had to be returned and we had to go back north. The quickest and most convenient way turned out to be by plane and, as Nelson has an airport with lots of  flights to Auckland, we booked our seats.

Considering how small Nelson is, with a population of only 60,000, we did wonder what the airport would turn out to be like....and what sort of plane we were taking......

  

...but we needn't have worried as the terminal was modern

(though with some odd sculpture inside).....

...and the plane had 2 propellors and no elastic bands.