Trip Report: NZ and Nelson Lakes (by cecile)

kia ora to all! so, its been a week since i arrived. nelson is quite the quaint little town, but it is the big city over here! i've been around town trying to fit in with the locals, today i just bought one of those reuseable handy dandy, green eco friendly bags. it was pizza nite once again. i must say, we make tasty pizza. what have i done so far, well, i went on a couple of hikes and periodically run the river in the morning. i'm trying to run up this one mountain, but haven't quite succeeded yet! i more like run, walk, more like walk. it's called the centre of NZ, but really isn't, i did find out at the bottom where there's this big field was where the first NZ rugby game was held. that was quite interesting. i am getting bit here, more so than when i was in india, interesting. let's see what else, i bake a lot since i've gotten here, so that means extra running for me in the morning. everything is very pretty and serene over here. very peaceful, weather is interesting, never really going to know what the weather will be like. we're going on this wilderness thing tomorrow, so i better go to bed, have to wake up nice and early. all in all, i've been enjoying myself over here!


...so, i have about a week left over here until i depart for the winter town that i call home. anywho, so Nelson Lakes. i'm suppose to report on that. well, we went to Nelson lakes on New Years i believe. we had a nice breakfast of homemade pancakes and went off with our journey to Nelson Lakes. It's about an hour and a half drive from Nelson. The roads are quite windy over here. i think i started getting sick after awhile. anywho, right before we got to the lakes, we stopped at Elaine's coffee shop, which was probably the only coffee shop around, suppose to be the best coffee in town (because it was the only one) turned out that it wasn't. After that we headed off towards the lakes. Once there, Lobo and i went for a hike that they call "the loop" while Mari and the girls stayed behind. the little track maps said that it would take about one and a half hours, but i think it was a lot shorter than that. it was a nice little hike, when we got back from the hike, Mari and Lobo went for a hike while the girls and i walked around and biked. it's a cute area. a lot of water and a lot of trees, during their winter its suppose to be a nice ski area as well. anywho, so that was Nelson Lakes. On the ride back, i started to get a bit woozy again, so i took a nap. And that started the beginning of my year. Happy day!