Today we drove from Abel Tasman to Nelson re-fuelled then back to the East coast further south than Greymouth to Hokitika a small town known for its jade carving.

The drive was quite good and not plagued with rain like last time. We're staying in a nice cheap clean hostel which is just above a jade workshop / shop where the inside living area of the hostel looks out over the shop below.

Jade, Paua and bone carving is quite a big industry in New Zealand and you see many people walking around with some form of carving as either a necklace or some other piece of jewelry. We watched some of the carvings being made which was quite impressive. Steve had brought me a jade twist for Christmas which somehow kept coming off of the thin rope necklace so we thought no better place to go and see if they can secure it then here. The woman took a look and changed the rope gave it a yank and it broke in two in her hands - long pause of disbelief followed - she turned really embarrassed and excused herself and returned moments later with her manager who said that this part of the stone wasn't meant to be carved in to such a small design which had meant that any strong pressure would cause it to break, she demonstrated with one of their necklaces of the same design and gave it a good wack on the side. That's all well and good but mine had just been broken and having a demonstration of what it should do doesn't really help.

The girl who broke it felt really bad and gave me her staff discount as well as shop discount to buy another one (they wouldn't replace it believe me we tried) but I did get a $120 replacement for $55 and when we got back to Christchurch after the trip we got our money back for the one that broke so all good there too.