Out of cleverness, I put various TV shows on my phone, so that I could watch them if the scenery got dull.
It didn’t, and indeed the road was sufficiently winding that looking out the windows was the only option; Nausea kicked in when I started reading something on my phone.
The Picton to Nelson road passes through various tiny little places, including the entertainingly-named Canvastown, a former pop-up tent town of gold miners & those who sell to them. They’ve discovered lumber now, from the look of it.
When I booked at Honeysuckle House (by phone; I was getting a bit desperate, as I’d found a few ‘no room at the inn’ hostels, and I only booked it yesterday) the proprietor had offered to get her husband to give me a lift if it was raining. Fortunately, it wasn’t and it was a pretty easy walk; Nelson’s not that big.
It’s another town surrounded by hills, but I didn’t bother trying to capture it on-camera; The phone really isn’t up to the task.
I did cut through some gardens on my way to the hostel, …
… and spotted an anachronistic-looking bridge†, which I checked out later, when I didn’t have a pack on.
Honeysuckle House is quite a nice hostel, run on a gleefully ad-hoc honour system from what I can tell; I extended my stay after the first night, when I decided that I didn’t really want to lug all of my stuff to Motueka & find a place there, and then extended it again by a night so as to not have two wildly early nights in a row.‡
Through all of that there was no thought of a deposit, or payment, and when I eventually tracked them down on my last day to settle up, they gave me a bit of a discount for having stayed so long.
It’s your classic high-ceiling two-story place, where the downstairs is the hostel, and the upstairs is the owners. Maximum capacity of 8 people, with one double room, one twin, and one 4-bed dorm. For most of my stay there was Me & a young woman from Nanjing staying there, with a German woman one night, and a French one another night. Comfy place, well-heated, had a lounge that nobody but me used, fairly standard kitchen, and free ice-cream.
Dinner involved a trip back into town to find an Iskender Kebab; This is all the fault of Cenk Gökçe, for having mentioned them in a Facebook post a few days earlier, and putting the idea in my head while I was in Picton, a town devoid of Kebab shops.
Really, I’m the victim here.
Also, it was a really good dinner.
Laundry happened, thanks to actual sunlight, and was the first official hostel laundry of the trip.
I’d hoped for fanfare, but what I got was clean dry clothes, so I’m OK with that.
Wanderings through town demonstrated that Nelson has a huge marina, through which I walked until I ran out of public access, and it was still going strong at that point,
riverside cycle & walking paths with various art items,
and the mural I’ve been using as my login image for the past few months.
Remember that bridge† I mentioned?
It turns out to lead to, and is part of, the Huangshi Chinese Garden, which sits inside Queens Gardens, and is part of a Friendly City relationship.
I’m not sure whether it’s my favourite bit of Nelson, but it’s pretty close, and it was certainly a very nice place to pass through on my way to & from things.
Also, the paving was interesting.
Part of The Nelson Experience involved a day trip to Motueka, to visit Cap’n Ghastly John, who I worked with back at Whitcoulls.
Getting there involved a fairly early bus, with an equally early arrival into a mostly-deserted town, which, while devoid of traffic and pedestrians, was not devoid of class, as the Bacon & Eggs I had for breakfast came with broadleaf parsley & an artistic smear of pesto.
I had time to kill before I felt comfortable taking the risk that people might be asleep, so I took a walk to the waterfront, to find … well, water. And a beach made mostly of rounded rocks. And quite a lot of view.
There was also the remains of a wharf, beside which were the remains of a ship.
I’m not sure whether they just parked it & walked away, letting nature take its course.
Caught up with John & nattered over cups of tea for 4 hours or so about, basically, what we’d be up to for the last decade.
(Incidentally, it seems to be a rare small town where the main drag isn’t “High Street”)
Took the bus back, getting in after dark, had a go at photographing the quite bright moon, …
… & watched a few episodes of Z Nation, which may not have been the wisest move.
Yes, it got funny; Episode 3 has the Liberty Bell in it, which they use to good & hilarious effect.
But Honeysuckle House is an old wooden building, and after watching three episodes, I was the last one awake, moving through a dark & mostly-empty house.
Like I said, not my smartest move.
Some early-morning phone-bingling led to a conversation with Steven & Monica about the planned Great Road Trip from Chicago to Indianapolis in August, which helped to firm up some plans for me.
Nelson is home to the Geographical Centre of New Zealand.
It’s the origin point for the District, which is in the centre of all of the districts – The Gravity-Model centre is sort of nearby, in an unremarkable patch of scrub.
It was a nice day, so I walked up there.
There was a lot of up involved.
Nice views though.
And because I wanted proof that I’d made it to the top of the bloody hill,
My other reason for extending my stay‡ was because Gen Con events registration happens at 4am NZ time, on a Monday, and I didn’t really want to be having to get up early to catch a bus the morning after having gotten up very early to hit the ‘Go’ button on my events wishlist.
I did some tweaking of that list the night before.
Tried & failed to remember how to make Excel do a sheet with Day & Hour time entries, incrementing by the hour, and had already drawn up a rough calendar when I realised that I could just do it in my diary in pencil, which is what I did.
Got through priorities 1-19 before I got sick of it, & just filled the back end of the list with sessions of Numenera & Dr. Who.
There’s a post in it’s own right about Gen Con Events Reg., so I’ll skip over that for now.
It absolutely pissed down in the afternoon; I did try to get a picture of the storm rolling in over the hills, but it’s … Not as ominous as it was in person.
Fortunately, the ice-cream was topped up at mid-day, which made for a very pleasant day of doing very little.
My last day in Nelson, having checked the weather reports, I took the hostel folks in Greymouth (my next stop) up on their offer of a pick-up from the bus station, through the wonders of email.
Also booked a hotel for the arrival in the US; Hilton were doing a sale which happened to include something convenient, and it’s at a brand (Doubletree) which is known for it’s warm cookie at check-in policy, so that’s a plus.
I stayed at one in Dublin, back in 2014, which is why I’m a Hilton customer loyalty scheme member, not that I have any usefully accumulated points. The cookie there was pretty good, and very unexpected; Shall have to see whether I can get a jar of them for the road trip.
My bus out of Nelson was at 0715h, so I packed up all of my stuff the night before, and even forewent a morning shower (is ‘forewent’ a real word?) to allow myself more sleeping time.
Naturally, I woke up before my alarm.