Nelson Lakes National Park

(This is continuing on our South Island holiday - we still hadn't got around to blogging the details...)
After packing up at the Barn on Wednesday, we had enough time for a game of pool, which Ben had been wanting us to show him the whole time we were there.  We headed off to Nelson (well, just south of Nelson actually), and stopped at the Sprig & Fern brewery first.  It turns out the brewery is not the place to learn about their beer and taste their product.  You can, however, BYO plastic 2L bottles and fill them up with your choice of brew.  After that  we went to McCashin's, makers of "Stoke" beer in, funnily enough, a place called Stoke.  That was a really good experience - it was a nice cozy cafe-style place, with toys for the kids to play with and about 20 beers to taste!  We left with some extra boxes on my lap...
After that, we went up the highway to St Arnaud and Nelson Lakes National Park.  Our plan was to stay for 8 nights in total, with one of them spent up in the mountains (whichever night looked best weather-wise).  There was a classic boat show on at the weekend, which meant Kerr Bay campground, our preferred option, was booked out.  But, because we were intending to stay for a week, the DOC staff let us stay there anyway, which was nice!
Thursday was cold and showery (apparently there was light snow up on the top of the ranges).  The weather didn't particularly bother us because we used the camp shelter - it was fantastic for staying out of the weather.
Friday was cold again - my parents arrived at lunch time, and we had fish and chips for dinner at the bach they were staying at.  Saturday dawned with howling wind and very heavy rain - when the cloud cleared enough, we saw the rather large dollop of snow that had been dumped overnight - apparently about 30-40cm.  We didn't feel like hanging around in howling wind, so we drove down to Nelson for the day - explored Founders Park, which was quite nice.
On Sunday, the forecast had been for 70km/hr winds, but there was no sign of them at breakfast time, so we quickly decided to pack up and head up the mountains.  I'll give details in a separate post...
Tuesday and Wednesday were relaxed days hanging around the campsite or the bach mostly - feeding the ducks at the lake, playing in the yard at the bach, going for little walks in the forest and looking at lots of mushrooms!
And then Thursday was the day we packed up and left to catch the ferry back to Wellington, which was not particularly remarkable, other than that it was a LOT windier than the trip over had been!