Abel Tasman and Nelson

I've failed quite spectacularly to keep things up to date over the past week and now it's hard to remember what i've actually been doing with my life!

Saturday (25th June) we spent the day in Nelson - went to the local market in the morning which sells lots of jewellery, clothing, preserves and not much fruit/veg. We tried one of the wraps recommended to us by one of the anaesthetists. I had a Turkish chicken wrap which was absolutely massive and tasted divine!!

Nelson's in a valley anyway but there's a massive hill with a telephone post on top which I decided to go and run up. There are paths up the hill but they aren't maintained and being the middle of winter, they were pretty muddy. The run was more of a quick march at some points. I got pretty high up but with the paths not very clear it was hard to decide which way to go. One path I took had a landslide part way along which I had to try and cross. Pretty scary drop down which I luckily avoided. When I got to the end of the path there was a sign up saying something about the path being closed due to landslide. Pity they didn't think to put another sign at the other end of the track!! I carried on my run and by this point I was starting to get a bit scared. Not only did I not know where I was going but time was ticking on and I certainly did not want to be stuck on the mountain in the dark. I tried to descend down the other side of this mountain - not wanting to go back the way I came because of the landslide - but then I lost my footing and slipped smack on my ass down the muddy edge of the mountain. I hate that feeling of falling anyway but it's even worse when you're sliding down flat on your ass and there's nothing to grab onto to stop yourself. Anyway I eventually did stop slipping and hauled myself back up the hill and once I was back on my feet again decided it was probably a good idea to stick with the route I knew and head home.

Saturday night called for Dominoes pizza and we got 3 pizzas for about £12 which was a pretty good deal!

Sunday morning was a very early start to go to Abel Tasman. We got picked up by the minibus and driven about an hour up the coast. Abel Tasman is a beautiful national park with tall green mountains, white sandy beaches and turquoise blue sea - even in Winter! We got a water taxi (i.e. a boat) out to a beach called Bark Bay and walked 12.2km to Anchorage bay, where we got back on the boat to return to the minibus. The walk was incredibly and the views were stunning. Despite a very frosty start, it warmed up quite nicely and I was able to get a bit of sunbathing in on the beach. NZ is full of sand flies and they seem to LOVE me! So despite being careful and keeping legs & ankles covered I got a fair few bites!

The week brought more hospital work. Nothing too exciting happened really. I'm getting pretty good at drawing up potentially lethal drugs and sticking various implements down people's airways! It's absolutely freezing and pitch black when I go to the hospital in the morning and then I stand in theatre all day and then by the time I leave, it's freezing and dark again! I'm told that apparently the weather is quite nice during the day but unless I get the afternoon off, I'm not seeing much daylight!

I've decided I actually quite like working part-time!! I went in this morning at 8am, watched one case and then got sent home because 2 anaethetists hate teaching and the other 2 were just doing stuff under local anaesthetic, so I had no role and there wasn't much to learn!

We finally went to a bar in Nelson last night! We met a friend of Tess' which was nice. There isn't really a night life in Nelson except at the weekend, but I feel slightly less boring now I've at least stepped foot in a bar in Nelson!

Ta ta for now

xxx