New Zealand - Days 20-22

Well, I have to say, I'm ready to come home. Its been over 50 nights of camping in a tent with having to withstand all the elements of nature. I'm tired of sleeping on the ground, wrapped up in a confined mummy sack. Its been hot, freezing, buggy, wet, and windy, and I'm about over it. I'm happy that we only have about one more week of camping, then we are getting a hotel/motel in Auckland - which hopefully has cable TV, meaning, more than 5 channels, and then the 4 nights in Fiji, we will at least have shelter (other than the tent) and a bed! If we're lucky, we'll have our own bathroom, too :) Okay, its not that bad, its just one of those days...

We spent a day in Nelson City Centre, walking around, stopping in shops, just taking it easy. We had a picnic in the Queen Gardens, which was quite a lovely park. The ducks were annoying, b/c they are so used to being fed, they just come right up to you, which is usually pretty cute, but not really when you are trying to eat yourself and don't really want to worry about a duck sniping your food :) That afternoon, we drove to camp at the Pelorus Bridge Scenic Reserve. The camping in NZ pretty much consists of an open mowed lawn, where you just drive and plot down where you please. There is no order to it what-so-ever. The next morning, we hiked to the Trig K lookout, which ended up being more for exercise purposes than anything, since the view was obscurred by a few trees, and we have done about a dozen or so rainforest hikes since we got here, and it all is starting to look the same. Oh well! Yesterday, we headed to Marlborough Sounds, which is beautiful. The camping was very windy and our tent almost snapped in half until we found a place in the bushes that wasn't apparent at first, since all we saw when we got there was the mowed open space...

This morning we woke to lots of clouds. Our planned itinerary was to hike to the highest spot in the Sounds, up Mount Stokes. However, when we arrived at the trailhead, everything was covered in clouds and it was super gusty. I didn't feel like making the effort to hike in the wind, and possibly the rain to see nothing, so we just drove around aimlessly. Unfortunately, the views from the road weren't so great, but that's alright. Now, we are in Picton, which is where we will catch the Ferry to the North Island tomorrow. We changed our date so we could have a couple extra days up north and won't have to completely rush through to Auckland. We have a route planned, which will show us a lot of vineyards and wineries, volcanoes, hot springs, and hopefully a beach! Let the touring continue!