Nelson April 4 - 6

We awoke after a night of heavy rain at the campsite in Franz Josef which is always noisy when you're sleeping inches from the roof of a camper van. We couldn't decide exactly where to stop next so set off north up the West Coast and decided we'd stop when we found somewhere we liked. A few hours into the trip we arrived in Reefton, a small mining village with little to offer in the way of excitement and so made the choice to make the most of a rainy day and carry on driving right through to the north coast and Nelson. One good thing about a driving day is that you have little else to do but listen to Kiwi radio, which is always a good source of entertainment! Aside from the fact that the Kiwi accent alone is hilarious, like someone has randomized all the vowels (we are 'bickpickers'), they have a much more relaxed approach to swearing on the radio here. You're likely to hear a 'piss' or a 'b******s' and maybe if you're lucky even a 'f***' at any time of the day. Waiting for them to drop the next 'f-bomb' is like a form of bingo for us on long road trips!

Nelson is quite a small city so the next day we headed into town to see what it had to offer. Needless to say there wasn't much to see, but we wandered up to the Anglican Cathedral which from a distance was quite a landmark. I personally would describe it as dull and ugly as it is very grey and mainly built of large grey concrete blocks. It also has a very tall bell tower which is visible from many parts of the city. We went inside and although it was very plain for a cathedral it was interesting to see the different sections, the memorial plaques and also the chairs that they have kept from Queen Elizabeth's visit many years ago.

That evening we took advantage of 'cheap tuesdays' and went to see 'Get Low' at the local cinema and picked up a domino's on our way back.