Nelson and Kahurangi Adventure

We have spent about a week in and around Nelson. It is a nice city with a beautiful beach, cathedral in the middle and free internet in the library :-). Most of the time in the town centre was used for shopping, searching for jobs and further shopping (Kathmandu had Xmas sales so we could not resist to buy some more gear).

Twice we could not resist and leave job hunting for some nature exploration. On Sunday we have decided to discover more of our camp surroundings. A painted map on the camp’s kitchen wall suggested that there is Maitai Dam nearby and from there a short track to Maitai Cave. On the track we have seen remains of recent fires again. It was not a first time that we have seen that. Next to main roads you can see daily fire predictions thus it seems that fires could be a large issue in NZ. However, later on we have realised that not all fires were fires:-). Some trees in NZ actually look like fire damaged. They are actually black birches and trees infected? by some sort of black moss. Anw, the cave was dark and full of mud, so nothing spectacular.

Nonetheless, our next trip to Kahurangi National Park was much better, We have not planned for this trip. As everyday we searched for free campsites and this one seemed in a nice area and promised some walks around. Ideal setting for two nights out of the city. Plus on the way there in Motueka was an European bakery apparently had Czech bread that we miss here so much. So we packed our stuff and headed north. Initially the road was ok with few hills and interesting lookouts and bends, but you can see many of these around NZ. Then the road became narrow, then gravel and then even more narrow and steep, just next to river cliffs. I believe that Lukas hated me for picking up this camp; and the car must had too :-). When the road finally cleared from the forest, we arrived on the top of Cobb Dam. The view was amazing, but the wind and near rain forced us to take a shelter in the nearby hut and cooked our dinner there. It was so windy to sleep there that we have decided to drive down to the actual campsite and hope for less wind. Bad luck; the wind was almost as strong as on the top and the road had so many holes that we just hoped that our Nissan will be ok.

I could not sleep because the wind was shaking with the car all night, but we woke up into a beautiful sunny (unfortunately still a bit windy) morning and surrounded by Cobb River and snowed mountains. Our destination for the day was Lake Peel. The trip was ok, just a bit too much water on the actual track for Lukas (we have sorted that by purchasing a new pair of shoes on the Wednesday sale; don't know why but Lukas loves shopping in NZ :-)). This lovely was ended by a cold wash in the river and fire. The next day we had to head back to Nelson to check on our unsuccessful job applications. On the way back we stopped in Montueka where we really found Czech bread. Well, they call it German style, but it tastes like ours!. Btw, Germans are probably the number one visiting nation together with English, French and 100% a lot of Czechs (So far we have met 6 Czech groups, it looks like there are more Czechs in NZ than in the UK.).