Craig:
The road trip of the South Island was awesome. We saw so many cool, interesting, amazing, funny things. The road trip also put a little dent in our pocket books so it is time to get back to non road trip reality. After much debate, we finally decided to try our luck finding jobs/place to stay in Nelson. Nelson is a nice little town right on the northwest coast of the South Island. It is a nice jump off spot for many other great sights such as Abel Tasman National Park, Golden Bay, and Marlborough wine country (all three of which we plan to visit).
Bridget was able to find a job as a chef in one of Nelson's downtown restaurants. We were both able to find job/place to stay by working for our accommodation at a local hostel. Paid employment has not come my way yet but it might some time soon. For now, we are enjoying our location which is a block away from the main street of Nelson. It is nice to not have to walk two miles to get to everything like we were doing in Christchurch.
Nelson is known for a couple of things. One as being the sunniest place in New Zealand and the other as being the geographical center of New Zealand. The Nelson region logged more sunlight hours in 2009 than other other area of New Zealand (2571 to be exact, an average of about 7 hours of sunlight every day). The north to south geographical center of New Zealand lies just north of the town in the hills overlooking Tasman Bay. There is a short hike up to the point which Bridget and I completed the other night to take in the sunset. Here are some pictures from the trip.
Panoramic of the sunset - overlooking Nelson and Tasman Bay
So far, Nelson has proved to be a good decision. For now, it is home.
Next stop: Hopefully Golden Bay
