Wandered around Nelson, nice town, compact.  Nelson is NZs second oldest city.  Some nice old building, a lot of which are made of wood.  We met a lady whose husband was a builder – wood flexes in earthquakes!  Also, I guess, there was a lot of wood around when Europeans first arrived.  A lot of homes are single story wood.

Lots of art galleries.  Paul wouldn’t let me buy anything. When has that stopped, you might ask.  Since all our credit cards have been cancelled yet again.  Had the best coffee so far, from a little stall holder.  These kiosks were on every corner of the main street selling coffee, spuds, sushi. 

When the lady in the tourist office heard that we liked to walk, she said we should go to what is supposed to be the ‘centre of New Zealand’.  Was she having a lark or what.  Talk about steep. I was panting worse than a dog by the time we reached the top and couldn’t feel by knees when we reached the bottom.  I was staggering, I was, I was.  Paul has now banned me from saying that we like a walk…. It also turned out not to be the centre of NZ, but a surveyors centre of Nelson district and Nelson is the central district amongst 12 other land districts in this region, hence centre.  The centre is directly below the needle.

Almost a 180 picture.  The line in the background is boulder bank, a 13.5km barrier spit that protects Nelson from the Tasman Sea.  It’s made of pebble, cobbles and boulders derived from Mackay Bluff, some 15 km north of Nelson.  Made of granodiorite, which is very hard, they get rounded rather than broken into little pieces.

A Kauri tree planted in 1951, you can’t see much of it.

And this field is where … The match was watched by 200 people, and the town won 2-0.  I guess scoring must have been different then.

One ring to bind them all…….

View down/up one of the streets to the cathedral in the distance, and from the cathedral.  Ugly building.