Today we headed into Nelson for their famous Sunday morning market. There are lots of stalls selling locally made food, art, crafts, wine etc, and we managed to get hold of 2 bacon and egg sandwiches, which we sat and ate in the sunshine…nice!

Next, we had some time online, looking up a few things we'll need for Oz, including our Greyhound bus passes - it'll take a while to get used to having to catch buses again after 3 months in the van, being able to decide where to go when on our own! We decided that we'd rather catch buses than do the campervan thing again because of the massive distances involved in driving around Oz. We have found a company that we can hire a car from to drive along the Great Ocean Road though…

We called in next door at Flight Centre, who were in the middle of a Europe Expo and were booking lots of people on trips to England…seemed strange! We were already annoyed with Flight Centre after having to pay £80 for date changes on our flights a few days ago (they should have been free!) and slightly more annoyed when they told us in the shop that Greyhound aren't one of their partners so they'd charge us a service fee to book our passes with them! We'd just told the woman that we'd leave it and book them ourselves online for free, when an old friend tapped us on the shoulder…it was Angelika, who we met in Fiji and had arranged to meet in her home town!

We had another wander around the market with Angelika and caught up with her news. We also picked up a bag of kiwi fruit for $1 - bargain! We all went to a nearby café for lunch, and were joined briefly by her daughter, Kim. It was really good to see them both again and the food was good, too! We told Angelika that we were planning on driving up to Abel Tasman National Park that afternoon and stay at the DOC site. She told us that we wouldn't get to see the coast that way, and we should go back to hers where she would tell us a better way to do it! So we followed her directions to her fantastic house in the hills overlooking Nelson, and were greeted in the driveway by her friendly dog! Inside, she showed us a leaflet for a water taxi company that shuttles people along the coast at Abel Tasman, so you can get off and do a walk then get picked up again by another boat - sounded like a plan! We also pinched some of her photos from Fiji and Octopus Island to replace our missing ones!

We said goodbye and headed along the coast towards Motueka I-Site, where we booked our trip for tomorrow - 9am boat to Bark Bay - 2.5hr walk to Torrent Bay, where we'll catch the boat back at 4pm. Sorted!

We then drove back to McKee Reserve, recommended by Angelika, where camping was only $6 each, and they even had proper toilets! We enjoyed the last of the day's sunshine and had a walk along the beach before settling in for the night. Really enjoyed today and looking forward to Abel Tasman tomorrow.