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!

Getting better...

Just a quick update: my ear infection (which turned out to be an outer ear infection rather than the far more common middle ear infection) has mostly cleared up.  I'm down to taking painkillers just once a day or thereabouts, which is obviously a lot nicer than popping them  like lollies!  I have to go back to the ENT at the hospital again tomorrow for hopefully one last look.

The holiday drama continues

We just woke up to Ben almost throwing up on us in bed!  Thankfully I was able to get the rubbish bin in time and the sheet only got sprayed a little. (he had just come in to tell us that his belly was feeling yucky - we had yet to give him a ice-cream container to carry with him)

Camping pictures...

It may have been the worst camping trip I've ever had, but the kids still enjoyed it.  I wasn't really up to taking any photos, so the first photo only got taken while we were packing up:

After packing up, I foolishly decided that I would be able to do the little walk to Tarawera Falls.  So we did.  It's a really impressive waterfall (the river goes underground about 30m short of the top, and pops out of a crack in the cliff - the main drop on the right is about 35m, the top of the cliff where the left fall is overflowing is 65m from the bottom), although I certainly wasn't feeling happy afterwards.  For a couple of days afterwards.

(In case you're wondering, it's now Tuesday, and I'm feeling significantly better.  Certainly not contemplating going back to work or mowing the grass or any other such thing, but better.  I've only taken one set of painkillers today, rather than the huge cocktail yesterday, which still left me writhing in pain).

Eventful Easter

It started on Thursday morning, when we decided at the last minute to go camping for the weekend (the weather forecast at the beginning of the week had been terrible - heavy rain and strong winds - but by midweek it was looking ok to go camping).
On Friday morning Peter woke up feeling like he had a cold and by the time we got to the camp site (3hr drive later), like he had VERY bad cold.  So we hung around the tent just relaxing for the rest of the afternoon and Peter had a disturbed nights sleep with fever and snotty nose.
Hence Saturday was also spent just chilling out (the kids had fun playing and made friends with the kids camping in the tent next to us) and Peter started to feel a little better by the afternoon.  That evening he developed a sore ear and endured a sleepless, feverish, sweaty, really sore ear night.
After breakfast on Sunday we decided it would be best to pack up and come home (we had planned to stay until Monday lunchtime), so he could see a Dr and get some antibiotics.  It was a very painful drive home for him and I drove as fast as I could to get him to a Dr ASAP.  Peter saw a Dr as soon as we got back in the afternoon, who diagnosed an ear infection (which we already had self diagnosed) and gave a cocktail of antibiotics, codine and ibuprofen.  And hour and a half after dosing himself up on the drugs, they hadn't seemed to make any difference and if anything, he felt worse than when he saw the Dr, so we decided to go up to the hospital.  We got the fastest service we have every experienced in an emergency department and he got a bed out the back after only waiting for about 30min.  They did some blood tests, gave him some IV fluids and some paracetamol/ibuprofen to help with the pain while we waited for a Dr to see him.  Three and a half hours after arriving the Dr came to see him and after the usual chat and 'look see'/poke and prod, she concluded that there wasn't anything more they could do for him in hospital (ie. nothing serious enough to need IV antibiotics etc.).  And since his temp and heart rate had come down since he first came in, that he should just go home and continue with the drugs the Dr had prescribed.  So he had another disturbed nights sleep (waking every few hours and taking more drugs to try and relieve the pain and fever) and unfortunately isn't feeling much better this morning.

Marahau and Abel Tasman National Park

The rain finally went away and we got to pack up in sunshine and drive to Nelson to restock groceries.  Except while we were in the supermarket at Nelson, someone decided to break into our roof-box and steal Ben's sleeping bag.  So we had to buy another sleeping bag as well as some groceries.
We had one night at the Barn in Marahau before we set out for our family tramping trip in Abel Tasman National Park, which was the reason why we had a new tent!  We'd picked out Apple Tree Bay as being a good destination - we didn't really want to make the kids walk much further than that (about an hour and a half).  It was a very pleasant walk - Naomi walked about half of it (so somewhere around 2.5km).  After lunch and setting up the tents, the kids got to play in the stream behind the beach, which was nicely sheltered from the sea breeze which had picked up.  The next day after a rather brisk start (it feels cold when you have to eat outside and it's below 10C!) the sun came out and it was a very beautiful spot to sit and relax.  I took Naomi for a walk at rest time, on to Akersten Bay, which would have been the next campsite along if we'd preferred it.
The following day was time to pack up - and just as well, because it was decidedly cloudy and cool.  We were back at the Barn for lunch, and went out for dinner as a treat - the Fat Tui is definitely recommended!
Our last night at the Barn was a reminder why it's not always nice to stay in places like that - even though we did get hot showers and a BBQ and so on, there's also rather noisy backpackers.  All night long.
More photos here.

Wine country!

After packing up at Nikau Cove in drizzly rain, we headed to Onamalutu campsite, which happens to be the closest DOC campsite to Blenheim and the Marlborough wine region.  The drive wasn't as long as we thought, so we stopped at a couple of wineries that afternoon:

• St Clair: nice range, nice wine.
• Moa brewery: Mel tasted a range of brews - very nice apparently!
• Allan Scott: we weren't particularly impressed.  Not having anything to entertain the kids didn't help!

The campground was empty and very very wet after raining all day.  During the night, our tent leaked a little bit through the floor - probably something to do with sitting in what had turned into a swamp!

The next day we did some more wineries (after coffee for us and some fudge for the kids!):

• Forrest: very nice riesling, bocce for the kids to play!
• Gibson Bridge: excellent range of pinot gris
• Fairhall Downs: very nice family-owned place.
• Bladen: saw some sunshine here!
• Hans Herzog: expensive and rather snobby-looking, so we didn't bother staying
• Staete Landt: interesting oaked Sauv Blanc.
• Framingham: we liked their classic riesling back in 2006, we still liked it now.  Also got to play croquet!

Dinner that night was at a Thai place in town... we weren't overly enthused being quite tired from a long day of driving around, but the dinner was fantastic!  We'd definitely recommend Chi Chi Restaurant on High Street!

To Wellington, Picton and the Marlborough Sounds

We had a beautiful drive down to Wellington (other than a huge rainstorm on the Desert Road!), with perfect sunshine and dead calm in Wellington (which isn't all that common!).  The ferry ride over to Picton the next day was fantastic - very little wind and beautiful sunshine - Queen Charlotte Sound is really nice on a day like that.
Picton is an ordinary little town, but with a fantastic harbour.  After lunch there, we headed off to Nikau Cove campsite where we stayed for 4 nights.  Highlights of the time there:

• A walk at Mt Stokes - the kids did a fantastic job walking on very very rough track.  We walked for about 5 hours (return), but didn't manage to get to the top.
• Playing on the beach
• Finding wildlife - hundreds of crabs under the rocks at low tide, along with a some mussels for dinner.

Set of photos here.

We're back...

From our 3 week South Island adventure.  Along with about 20GB worth of photos, so it will take a little while to sift through them before they make their way into cyberspace!
We managed:

• 4 nights in the Marlborough Sounds
• 2 nights near Blenheim
• 1 night in Marahau (near Abel Tasman National Park)
• 2 nights camped in Abel Tasman, right on the beach
• 2 more nights at Marahau recovering
• 8 nights at Nelson Lakes National Park, with Mel and I having one of those to ourselves, high up in the mountains.
• A couple of nights in Wellington on the way there and back and one in Napier as well.

As I said, photos of each of those will be making their way up in due course (along with more details!).

How to make bland veggies taste nice...

Add a touch of carcinogens...method - Char grill.

(veggies tried so far - Zucchini and eggplant)