The Purple Penguin

Now in south island and so far so very very good.

The ferry is nifty and the trip over is lovely. I kept hearing that Cook Strait was nasty but it was quite calm. We did see the big dark clouds over the south island though. Going through the sound is beautiful and Joe took an entire roll of film.

I did say that as every thing says Nelson is the sunniest area of NZ that we would have rain and yep, we’ve had rain. But it was a lovely drive to Nelson (and I must say that the ferry terminal in Picton is much nicer than the one in Wellington!) We went along the coast – little twisty roads climbing and going down into bays. Very nice drive.

I think we got a car upgrade though as this one is much bigger (we can fit everything into the boot!) Still I’m getting used to it.

So lovely dinner last night. Our hotel is way out, between Nelson and Richmond (yep, little town called Richmond!) probably a touch closer to Richmond. So we have to drive everywhere. But we headed to a place called Waterfront and had the best seafood platter – prawns, scallops, crab, white fish, salmon, and mussels with new potatoes and a very good salad. Lovely food and nice people. We also had a huge pudding – Joe had the upside down apple pie and I had the passionfruit and lemon meragne. Very nice but very large.

We haven’t said much about food – so far so good. It’s all been good if not excellent. Lots of seafood, some venison, lots of lamb, and steak! Though I’m still getting used to the idea of serving pesto with toast and eggs in the morning. Of course we’re blowing the budget on good meals! (Joe just asked ‘what budget? We have a budget?’)

Today we were off to go diving. A place called Pupu springs (it’s full name is longer but I don’t have it here). Our cave dive and drift dive were off – the path and steps to the cave dive were being worked on so we couldn’t get to it. Fish Creek is empty of water, so not much good for diving! But the springs were lovely. Very very clear water, very very cold clear water. There were trout, dancing sand in the springs, dancing rocks, loads of little crayfish, and I saw a small eel! Up close and personal even. We managed to spend about 40 minutes in the spring so a very nice dive. Though they do have pretty strict rules – only four divers at a time (there were only three of us so no problem) and you can only spend 15 minutes in the spring. We were the only three divers there so we had no problems – we’d come up and check to see if anyone was waiting, there wasn’t so we went back in. Joe got some good photos and video!

Speaking of which, we do promise to try to find a place to upload photos! It just takes ages and not every internet cafe will let us do it.