We were woken up at 8:30 today (again) by the kids playing rugby in the school playground over the fence from our site! Dave decided he wanted to see a doctor as a few little niggles were concerning him and we thought it was best to go while in a big place like Nelson. We went to the I-Site and were directed to an out-of-hours place that takes non-Nelson residents. $110 later, Dave was reassured that he had nothing nasty, and we went on our way. Back in town, w...

Well, today I reached the grand old age of 28! We had a busy day planned, starting with Skyping home - first time I've shared part of my birthday with Mam on her birthday - all thanks to the 12 hour time difference! At 12pm our tour guide CJ collected us for our trip around Nelson, along with the couple in the van next to ours at the site who'd booked on the same tour - weird! We got chatting and found out that Ailsa was from Newcastle, and has lived in Heaton,...

Today the weather had completely changed from yesterday - we awoke to grey skies and could tell that rain was on the way - apparently that's what Spring is like in NZ! We packed up in the rain and drove the short distance into Nelson. We found an internet café and caught up for an hour, then headed to the I-site to book stuff for my birthday tomorrow! After looking at loads of different options, I decided on a half-day 'Best of Both Worlds' tour, taking in brew...

At 4am this morning we were awoken by a 'cock-a-doodle-doo' or two from the site's resident cockerel! Unimpressed, we managed to go back to sleep for a few hours. We got up at a more sensible hour, and hit the road in the rain. We were heading towards Nelson today, and had planned to stay at another DOC site, but when we looked into, we found there weren't any on the way, the only ones were quite out of the way. Since we weren't planning on spending much else th...