We set our alarms for 8:40 so that we could get breakfast, cereal and more home-made scones in the Tombstone kitchen. We checked out and I let Lynn know I had broken one of their glasses and she said, “Don’t worry about it.” I told her there was half a litre of Hokey Pokey in the freezer as compensation and she laughed. We got on the road about 10:00. Since we had already driven up most of the QC Drive, we decided to take the less scenic route through Blenheim.

On the way out of town we stopped at “The Fudge Factory,” Marc’s idea, I hate fudge, and there was a tasting room next door so did a quick tasting at Bouldevine and bought a bottle of Gewurtztraminer for $25, their cheapest wine. Marc also bought 200 gm of fudge for $12.

We got to Nelson at 12:45, and Marc had looked in the guide book for a place to eat lunch. We still had fish and chips on the brain after talking about them so much on the trail yesterday, so we stopped at a place called Haven. It was definitely a loved-by-locals type of place. Many were hanging out waiting for their orders. We ordered 3 pieces of fish, fries, a diet coke and their “homemade tartar sauce” and it came to $19.70. I dug into my purse to discover we had only $15 cash left and they didn’t take cards… I apologized and asked her to take off the coke and the tartar. She was all, “No worries, no worries,” and re-rang us and it came to $14.70. Then as we were waiting for our food I realized we wouldn’t have any tartar sauce, which in my opinion is the best part of fish & chips. She called our number and I had dug up enough change to buy an extremely small packet of tartar sauce, and she waved my hand away, reached into the fridge and handed us a fat container of the homemade tartar. I could have kissed her. We thanked her heartily and then took our goodies to a bench by the water, and dug in. The salty greasy goodness of it hit. the. spot. YUM.

Back in the car and we reached Motueka by 2 pm-ish. We stopped at the grocery store and I bought more breakfast items, bread, meat and local cheeses for sandwiches, and some lovely salmon (which the “butcher” said was from Mt Cook?), pumpkin, purple potatoes, and corn on the cob. Next we looked in 3 shops to find a hat that Marc would wear (he finally bought a black baseball cap that said New Zealand). We also picked up a ton of brochures on the park at the I-Site. Then we headed to our cottage rental in Riwaka.

The cottage cost $100 a night. We got there and were greeted by the owners. It’s a 2 bedroom cottage up on the hill in Riwaka, and it has lovely valley views and the gardens surrounding it are kept up well by the owner. Everything inside looked new as if it had just been built or at least, remodeled. And, they have a tailless puss named Grey Kitty. We chatted with the owners about the area and I asked their advice about kayaking and tramping the Abel Tasman. They recommended we drive to Kaiteriteri beach where many of the companies have booths.

We drove to Kaiteri beach, a 10 min drive. Maybe because it was overcast, and maybe because the pictures I’ve seen of it made it seem like a beach in Hawaii, but I was a bit disappointed in it. Perhaps it’s because it was late in the season, but no one was on the beach and no one was swimming. We had been planning on spending almost all of a day here as a “downtime day,” but after seeing it I didn’t want to spend a day there. It also had no shade. We went to the restaurant across from the beach and had coffee and Marc had the green mussels appetizer ($14). They were good, but drowning in a marinara sauce that seemed like overkill.

We drove back to the cottage and looked over the many brochures we’d picked up and tried to decide what to do for the next 3 days. We decided that since it was supposed to rain the next day that we would go to Golden Bay. The next 2 days we would spend in the park, one day kayaking and another day I would hike while Marc would do his own, non-hiking thing. I cooked up the salmon and the purple potatoes (which were only purple on the outside) and made a salad with veggies from their garden, plump ripe tomatoes and cucumber. The poached salmon was so good and so moist, and the purple potatoes were sweet, more like sweet potatoes. For dessert we had leftover carrot cake and I spent the rest of the evening pouring over the brochures trying to decide which activities would be best for us.

 

Here’s a video of Ms. Gray Kitty being extra cute. She was the highlight of staying at Riwaka Heights and helped me get over missing my own kitties!

Go on the next part of the journey!