Nelson, New Zealand

Arriving in Nelson was like a breath of fresh air, the sun was shining, we were back in our shorts and life was good.

We had some big plans to make and after checking out every option we discovered that Nelson was a terrible destination to make onward plans. Flights were expensive, buses were few and far between and hire cars had extortionate one way charges. Eventually after hours and hours and hours of searching we found a hire car to get us to Picton. As it was the saving we made not taking Blondini on the ferry to the North was still more than the cost of the hire car but it was the stress of finding that one hire company that didn’t rob us blind that was the problem.

We hauled up in a campsite in Nelson for a few days to get our lives in order and after nearly 6 months of living out of Blondini we needed to somehow get our worldly belongings back in our bags.

Obviously we couldn’t just spend two days packing and planning so we went to the WOW exhibition, the World of Wearable Art. This is an annual exhibition and competition to make statement clothes out of less than usual fabrics or items, like cable ties, sunglasses, mirror balls and anything else you can possibly think of. The WOW museum also had a pretty cool vintage car exhibit which kept Tim entertained for a while, especially when we found the Delorian and decided that he needed to recreate the Back to the Future poster!

Back to the campsite we were busy packing up Blondini ready for her new home and decided that we had earned ourself a treat and so took a break to play mini golf. I am pretty sure that Tim wished that he had stayed in the Van packing and cleaning as he was so off his game it was not even funny. I was getting holes in one and Tim was taking 15 shots and still not getting it in. Needless to say I thrashed Tim.

The following morning was a sad sad day, it was time to deliver Blondini to her new mum and dad. The great thing was that we knew John and Kaye and loved Blondini so she was going to great home and they were going off on holiday in her straight away into the Marlborough Sound. Like most things in NZ, selling cars seems to be done differently. In the UK, there would be a signing of documents, an exchange of money a handshake and a goodbye which means you will never see or hear from each other again. Here in NZ John and Kaye invited us in for a coffee, drove us to the hire car station to collect our new wheels and prepared us a delicious lunch at their house. We had some final photos with Blondini and added each other as friends on facebook. What a perfect way to say goodbye to our baby girl. Safe travels John & Kaye, I hope our beloved Blondini looks after you as much as she did us!!

Off we set in our mean green hired machine, next stop Blenheim.