Getting out of bed when it's dark is too hard!! Any my bed was so nice and warm!
Met Jimmy who's the owner / manager of the place, and he seems really nice. Got picked up by the coach a little late as well, but it gave me time to read the little sign by the cottage which told me that Shortbread Cottage is an heritage cottage, built in the early 1900s. Elliot Street, which is the corner of Shortbread is also a heritage street, which is cool. I like staying in a place that has been around for almost a century :) It's just a shame I won't be able to hang around in it much as I would really like to. Hopefully I'll come back at some point.

Nelson is also really beautiful. Shortbread is surrounded by lovely green hills, it's great. The route we took to Abel Tasman Park was especially scenic as we passed the coast with the tide in. On the way back, we passed it with the tide out and it looks so different (obviously)!
Picked up lots more people on the way, so I was worried that ATP would be chock full of people, but it's a really big park with lots of walks and other stuff to do, so hopefully there wouldn't be too many people getting in the way!

The tour package I'd chosen meant that I had a bus ride to Kaitereteri, then got a boat to Anchorage, and then I'd walk to Marahau from Anchorage. That would take about 4 hours or so, but I had 5.5 hours to do it in. That meant I'd be able to take it easy, stop on the way, sit on the beach, etc.
I was a bit daunted at first, especially if it was a boiling hot day, as I didn't want a repeat of being in the desert! I knew it wouldn't get that hot here now, but it was all open track and along the coast, then I'd just get roasted! Luckily the track was really shady (it felt like I was walking through rainforest sometimes) and it was fairly flat. A few steep bits, but nothing too strenuous.
I also met a really nice Korean girl called Mel at the beginning, so we walked the track together. It turns out that she actually lives in Sydney and used to live in New Zealand and used to come to ATP all the time when she was younger! We swapped email addresses and so hopefully we can meet up in Sydney when I eventually get there sometime in mid-late March.

The boat ride was chock full of people, so I didn't get a chance to take too many photos. There's a rock formation called the Split Apple, which was pretty cute, so I got one photo of it before 26 different heads popped up to also take their photos! The views on the way round were gorgeous too - turquiose sea, beautiful mountains and hills and islands, and lovely sandy beaches. Ahhhh, sooooo nice! I just soaked up the view instead of having a camera stuck to my face! I forget to do that sometimes, just take in the view with my own eyes, rather than taking pictures!

Get dropped off in Anchorage, on a gorgeous sandy beach, which made me just want to sit there for ages. However, after spending 2 hours on a bus, and then 45 minutes on a boat, my legs wanted to do some work and so I got on with the walk. It's well sign posted, and the first sign said 13km - 4 hours walking time, which made me groan. The weather seemed pretty good though, bit chilly first thing in the morning, but it was nice and sunny with lots of blue sky and a few fluffy clouds.
Get to the top of the hilly bit, and the view is amazing. I can see the beach where we got dropped off, and the islands around it! I have no idea how high up I was (something else for me to look up) but it was worth getting up at sparrow's first cough again. The views were stunning all the way around as well, even when you couldn't see the beach or the islands. There were lots of little creeks and little waterfalls in the park, as well as protected birds, lots of silver fern and other plants, and flowers.
Mel and I sat on a couple of beaches as well, getting some sun and having a rest. It was nice to be able to take your time doing a walk, rather than just steaming on ahead like lots of people who passed us seemed to be doing!

We also got a bit of a shock when we were walking across a bridge over a small-ish creek, as some bloke was having a bit of a dip in the water! I don't know if he didn't have a shower where he was staying, or if he just fancied a dip, but there he was, in his under-crackers, having a bit of a bath. He wasn't even good looking nor did he have a good body!! I didn't want to say anything to Mel at first but once we'd walked a little way, she said to me 'Did you see the....' so we both had a great big laugh!! She first thought that somebody had left a pair of shorts there hanging up under the bridge, and then saw that a man was actually in them!! We were still laughing about it on the bus back :D

We both caught the 4pm bus, which I hoped would give me a bit of time back at Shortbread to be able to pack up my stuff, have some dinner, and do a bit of forward planning for the rest of my South Island trip. Had another fantastically entertaining bus driver who told us all sorts of things, including a story about aliens that he thinks are responsible for the rock art that appears and disappears on the shore....he was really funny, so that was another bus journey well spent.
Didn't really get a chance to do that much planning but Jasmine (the German girl I met on the first night) did reassure me that I didn't need to do both glaciers and that the glacier I had chosen was probably the better one to do. Good, it's nice to get decisions confirmed by someone else who's been there and done that and seems to have their head screwed on!

So, off I go to Greymouth tomorrow, to spend a night before going to Fox Glacier. I could go straight to the glacier, but I just don't want to spend 10 hours on a bus. Yuk. 5 hours is my maximum really, before I'm tearing my hair out. I know that it means I'm spending more money by staying in a few more places, but if it saves my sanity then I much prefer it!!
I'm looking forward to climbing the glacier for some strange reason! I know it'll be cold (ooh, I can finally wear some of these other clothes that I've been lugging around with me!) but I'm really looking forward to having a bit of a climb on a glacier! I've jumped out of a plane, I've climbed rocks in the desert in stupidly hot weather, now for a bit of climbing on ice! :D

Country / cty / town count so far :

Singapore
Australia - Darwin, Alice Springs, Red Centre - Erdlunda, Curtain Springs, Yulara, Uluru, Kata Tjuta, Kings Canyon, Glen Helen, Palm Valley, Melbourne
New Zealand - Auckland, Hamilton, New Plymouth, Taupo, Rotorua, Whakatane, Gisborne, Napier, Wellington, Picton, Nelson

3 countries
23 cities / towns
All in 45 days or thereabouts.
That's a city every 2 days. Urgh.