To Nelson
ANZAC Day, 25th April 2007, when I awoke I wondered if during the day we would be held up by any of the parades in the local towns we would pass through. Our accommodation was well placed to not be held up in Murchison. As I was up early enough I walked back into town to the War Memorial pay my respects, but I was not early enough to attend the Dawn service, that was too early, and I did have to drive that day!
I returned to the cabin in time to make breakfast, and then repack the car, ready to continue our journey to Nelson, in the Tasman region in the north of the South Island.
The first part of the journey took us over the top of the mountain range to the eastern side, on this side the valleys opened up and were wide, making them ideal for grazing. I was curious as to why the fences here were twice as high as on the farms in Australia, until I noticed that not only were there sheep for wool being grazed, but also deer for venison, hence the higher fences, as deer are able to jump over normal fences.
We reached a crossroad about mid morning and I was about to take the direct route to Nelson, when Carolann directed me to go the other way, as she wanted to go through Motueka, which was about 100km longer, and as we had plenty of time, I turned left instead of right (right being the direct route). As we approached the small town of Mararewa, I noticed there was a sign to a café that was open. This was a change as up until now everything was closed for ANZAC Day.
Intriguingly the sign pointed to a track which went off the road and through some bushes, I hoped that there was no car coming the other way, as there was not much room to pass. The track soon opened up into a clearing big enough to park many cars.
The café was two small buildings, one of which was covered in Ivy, and as it was now late autumn it had changed from its summer green to a beautiful red, this contrasted nicely against the other shades of autumn colours and the greens of the evergreen gum trees and conifers.
When we entered the café we were instantly made to feel welcome and informed that they were getting ready for the people returning from the ANZAC day parade in the next town. It appeared that we would not have been able to proceed through that town for an hour so this was a timely stop for coffee!
We left the café just before the guests from the parade were expected to arrive, mindful of not wanting to meet another car on the track coming to this café as we were leaving.
By the time we went through Mararewa and Tapwera (where the ANZAC Day parade was) the road was clear and we had no problems proceeding to Motueka and Mautere Inlet, where we decided to have lunch. From here we could see our intended destination for the night Nelson and while it looked so close it would still take us over an hour, as we had to now go around the bay so that we could enter Nelson from the south, and locate our hotel for the night.
It was still only mid afternoon by the time we had settled into our hotel room, so we decided to take the car and drive to where I could photograph the sun setting over the water of Tasman Bay, before having dinner and watching some Television and going to bed
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