Nelson

i got to nelson pretty late, after a tough bus ride. i was pretty worried about that bus ride, but Intercity knows where they get their money from and the bus did a stopover in Punakiki, where there are famous pancake rocks. the rocks are not exciting but the rest of the west coast is. [after travelling on the north island for a week and a half i can definitely say that the companies and the DOC know where the money is coming from. you do not see that kind of stuff on the south island].

the hostel owner picked me up from the bus and brought me to the best hostel that i’ve stayed in. the hostel is fifteen minutes out of town, the kitchen was a bit too small and crowded and three showers for 20-something people is not enough, but everything was clean. the highlight, though, were two new computers with internet access, burners and memory card readers. they were free. they were always on. they are the reason i have so many photos in my flickr account. i really liked those two computers.

on my first day i met an american jewish girl. i got to hear her family history, which took quite a while. stuff you only hear about in talk shows. she had a really weird backpack [the second weirdest i’ve seen so far. the first is those weird Osprey or something backpacks. they have firm plastic backs, weird hoods, pockets all over the place. they’re transformers as well and can change their shape. you can use them to carry heavy loads comfortably. apparently they weigh about 3kgs, twice as much as the average bag. if they were lighter, you might not need such a heavy suspension system :”)] [i’m not into backpacks that much, but these are some really _weird_ packs] we took bikes from the hostel [after spending ca. 2 hours in the i site trying to book stuff] and went to the beach. the beach was far away. we were almost run over a few times and i felt like one of those game deer they have here each time we had to cross the road. by the time we got back from the beach the bottom of my back end was in a lot of pain. it turns out crocs are not ideal biking shoes, too. there was quite a lot of beach and not a lot of water – you can wade out for 70-80 meters and only be waist deep in water. the sand was more pleasant than the sand we have back home.

then, suddenly, Guy showed up. Guy is a israeli guy i keep running into in here. i met him for the first time in Wanaka. he showed up again in Franz Josef. he made another appearance in Nelson. later, we met on the Tongariro Northern Circuit and in Taupo. we went grocery shopping and i got to enjoy once again the pleasure of the New World [supermarket chain] self checkout. it was quite a lot of fun the first couple of times, then it grew old and annoying. someone else made an appearance that night as well – Nati. Nati is another israeli who took an interest in me, a single female traveller in a country full of israeli herds [everyone complains/ comment here that israelis travel in large groups. i only met another single israeli female and i heard about the legendary Dafna Gur. that makes about three of us] back in Franz Josef. [and just yesterday i ran into his trail up in the Bay of Islands]. he worked in africa for the UN. an intresting guy. he made some sushi which i refued to try.

the next day i got on my last intercity ride for a while and went up to picton.