M-whY

It was a small but lively affair, with vendors selling everything, including crafts, produce, clothes, and sculptures. I treated myself to some sausages and kebabs at some of the food stalls. I also bought myself a new hat, replacing the one I had left behind at the previous hostel.

Some apples would be nice for my hike, I thought, so I picked out one of the many stands selling fruit. Buying fruit is always an intersting process. Everything I buy, I like to compare prices to what they are at home. For fruit, I first have to convert the NZ dollars to US dollars, and since they use the metric system here, convert kilograms to pounds. And then realize, I never really paid attention to grocery prices back at home, so I have no idea if what I'm buying is expensive or cheap.

But for $2 NZ ($1 NZ = $.70 US) for 1 kg, which turned out to be six delicious apples, probably picked from the trees the same morning, I think I got a pretty good deal.

We left Nelson around 1:00pm. Here Don and I would split ways for a couple nights. To do our three day Abel Tasman hike, we would need transport to the top of the trail, from which we'd work our way down. There are two ways to do this. Either by water taxi, or shuttle bus. Don enjoyed water, so he chose the water taxi route. I'm sure you know by now I get seasick really easy, so guess which method I chose. His water taxi left from a different town than my bus, so he would be dropping me off at Motueka, and we would try to meet each other on the trail somewhere.

We picked up a hitchhiker along the way. Ben was hitchhiking, paragliding, and camping his way across New Zealand. He was quite a gregarious guy. It was pretty interesting learning a bit about paragliding, about how they would steer themselves towards cumulus clouds to catch hot air rising, or try to catch winds coming off hills to go higher.

Ben himself was also headed to Motueka. Don dropped us off, I located a hostel to spend the night in, and then walked around the small, one street town. The town had a lot of neat little shops, but unfortunately everything was closed early on saturdays.

With everything closed, I went back to the hostel. I watched a little TV, did a little writing, read some magazines lying around, letting the South Island town effect wash over me. So sleepy...

Thanks to everyone for their support and comments! Knowing people are reading keeps me motivated to continue the updates!