Base

I've been on the move quite a bit for the last few days, so much so that I've barely had time to even mention them. Ready for the rundown? (ToadMama, are your tracker map listening ears strapped on, lol? The SPOT updates just are NOT working!)

(A terrible picture, really, taken through a moving bus window, but goes to show that not all of NZ's mountains are snow-covered.)


As I already mentioned, I spent a night in Greymouth, a total of less than 24 hours actually. There's not a whole lot to do there, really, it was just a good stopping point on my way from Franz Josef to Nelson. What I did manage to do was a brewery tour. I figured since I did my first winery tour on the road, why not add a brewery tour to the list also? For $25 I got a brewery tour, seven beer tastings and one cider tasting, a glass of beer of my choosing, and a meal afterwards. We could choose one of three restaurants to go to, but I'm pretty sure my entire group went to the same place. I met a bunch of people and had a lot of conversations, but there was one really funny conversation to tell about. (Background info for this story is that as one of the few females present, I was getting quite a bit of attention.) Olly, who I believe was one of the owners, kept introducing me to people. At one point he introduced me to a group of old guys. One of them, who had to be at least 80, shook my hand, kissed my cheek, and asked me if I was from Greymouth. I told him I wasn't, I was from the US. His response? "Oh! I thought you were from around here. Ah, well, you're still pretty cute anyway!" I was cracking up!


From Greymouth I went to Nelson where couchsurfer Diane picked me up for the night. Diane is from the States and just moved to NZ about a month ago. We didn't do a whole lot during my stay, but she showed me around a bit and pointed out the very center of New Zealand. The day was crisp and sunny, so perfect for being out and about and walking. For my second night in Nelson I checked into a hostel. Diane mentioned that she's been late to work every day since she's started her new job and I figured I wouldn't add to her morning stress. :-)


The next morning, today, I left Nelson and headed to Picton. I was only in Picton as a transfer spot for the ferry, so I spent all of three hours there. Good thing, too, because it didn't look like there was much to it! After a four hour ferry ride, I landed in Wellington where I was met by the Marshes, a couchsurfing family that will be hosting me for the next few days.


I'm looking forward to being in Auckland and having a base for a few weeks. Not that I'm not looking forward to the places I'm going to hit leading up to it or anything. But having Auckland as a base will allow me to feel a little more settled than I've felt recently and I will still be able to take weekend (or - heck, I'm on vacation - mid-week!) trips to explore.