Top of the South!

When I last wrote, I was in Greymouth on the West Coast. Pretty much nothing happened the week that I was in Greymouth. It's the largest town in what was formerly NZ's Coal Belt, and now that the coal is more or less tapped out from the hills, the area's in some decline. Tourism's not super huge here - compared to places that are a day's drive away, Greymouth is, well, kind of ugly (at least, compared to the rest of NZ - by many other countries' standards it would be quite nice). And it rains quite a lot - the west coast is one of the rainiest areas in the world, and it rained 3/4 of the days I was there. It is the largest city in the area at 13,000 souls though, and it's the terminus of the Tranz-Alpine railway that crosses the southern Alps and ends at Christchurch, so visitors tend to spend a night in town and then move on to the glaciers southward, or head up north to Nelson and the Marlborough wine country.

So, after helping out at the hostel and watching a crapload of movies and Grey's Anatomy in my flat, I moved northward to Nelson Lakes to get another taste of the mountains. St. Arnaud is a cute little town, and had a good deal of hiking. I did a three hour hike up Mt. Robert, which was one of the most rewarding short hikes I've ever done in terms of amount of effort (not much) per ounce of awesomeness (lots). There was a decent amount of snow at the top, so Todd (a fine young American who I picked up in Greymouth) and I built a little snowman there. Perhaps he is still there even now. The snowman, not Todd. I dropped Todd off in Picton the next day and totally did not commit murder on a mountain top. I can't stress that enough.

After Nelson Lakes and the drop off in Picton (from where I will take a ferry into Wellington and the North Island in a week and a half), I spent the night in Blenheim and went on a tour of four wineries. Blenheim and the Marlborough wine district is world-renowned for their sauvignon blanc, something to do with how the soil is makes it super smooth and tasty. Their other wines are pretty good, too. So that tour was pretty nice, and I was pretty happy after that :D

Blenheim didn't have much beyond wine, so I moved onto Nelson (City), one of NZ's oldest cities. Old isn't exactly a good adjective for it, though - the oldest intact street is here, and it's from 1863. New Zealand's really a baby. Kind of makes me want to find the nearest Kiwi and pinch his/her cheek. I recommend you reading at home try and find a Kiwi to do this to as well. Anyway, I digress. Nelson's a very nice town, all sorts of cafes and bars and sunshine and all those things that would make a yuppie like me happy to live here if I were staying in NZ permanently...except for one thing. We've hit what's called the shoulder season, when all the tourists have effectively cleared out, and tourists make up a significant portion of the population you would see on the streets at day and night. A Canadian girl I met in Greymouth told me previously that Nelson was pretty awesome in the summer, but as of mid-April pretty much empties out until October. Much of NZ is like this, unfortunately (though the mountainy areas, like Queenstown, get heaps of ski traffic starting in June). Oh well - if I do come back, I'll revisit Nelson, and it'll be in the summer.

So, from here, I have a couple of stops I'll be making before I head up to Wellington. Golden Bay, the land of naked hippies and sunshine (so the guidebooks assure me). Abel Tasman, land of kayaks and sweet coastline hiking. And the Queen Charlotte Track, land of even more sweet coastline hiking.

So long!