South Island

Helen: Woke up this morning in Wellington...and now we're in Nelson - have gone from the south of the north island to the north of the south island! Was sad to say goodbye to Eva and Den and the boys - has been lovely having a good friend just down the road - but good to get back on the road again. C said going on a ferry always makes him feel like he's going on holiday as he always went on the ferry to go camping in France when he was little.

Wellington has great galleries, museums and gardens. And lots of cafes, bars and shopping. And hills. And walks. And the sea. And quirky wee buildings. All in all, our favourite place so far in NZ. Reminded us both of San Fran. You won't believe it, but we both quite enjoyed 'cat-sitting' for Noodles for the last week or so - we're both so definitely dog people and not cat people though it was quite a revelation to find that somehow we'd ended up with a ball of purring fluff on our laps every evening! We won't miss the telly though - we watched loads while we were house-sitting - just goes to show that if it's there we'll watch it - we're only human!

Nelson, from what we've seen so far, is great. More later when we've done some exploring. Won't be for a few days though as we're off sailing tomorrow - we have 5 days with a sailing school to prepare for yachtmaster (and then the exam on Feb 7 - yikes!) So, will likely be incommunicado til the weekend (I can't wait for Friday night - we're going to go and see an open air screening of Erol Flynn's Robin Hood - I've been trying to get that on DVD for years now)

OK, time for bed. C is already passed out with the lights on - he had 2 pints of strong stout/dark beer from the independent pub over the road! (The pub had oodles of charm - it had black boards on all the walls with quotations to read, cross words to fill in, points to argue (who would win a 'no-holds-barred' fight - Emimem or Elvis) and things to make you think (can you name 10 body parts with only 3 letters - abbreviations like bum, pec and ass don't count - C and I finally managed it in about 12 minutes - the record is apparently 3.5. Don't worry, next time I write I'll tell you the answer and put you out of your misery...)

Lots of love
Hxxx