This time we decided to stay in Nelson for a day and a half – ￂﾠjust to get a better feel of it. And after having a good rest here and walking around we saw that it would be good to stay longer…it is a very neat and tidy city, not big, everything within walking distance and everything that their people and tourists may need. The buildings are a nice mixture of Victorian and contemporary styles. But all nicely painted and taken care of. All the streets are consistently nice, some flowers in front of houses, no barking dogs, everything just right. The Tasman Bay Backpackers Lodge was praised on the internet so we stayed there. and you can feel how they care, how they clean and do all they can to make us satisfied with our stay. The first thing ￂﾠ-they had cacti blooming this late in their summer!
They are known for cooking a big brownie pie and serve it with chocolate sauce and ice-cream every evening at 8 pm to all guests! But we mostly liked it because of the good energy and good design – the kitchen is on the first floor, so nobody bangs onto our heads like in the place in Motueka. I can recommend this place for those who like places with shared kitchens! To tell the truth – we even almost didn’t use the kitchen, only for coffee and tea. This city has nice places to eat and it happened so that we ate Thai food and especially tasty fish, squid, scallops and chips on a corner close to a Buddhist center and the river- on Nile street. Close by ￂﾠis their Queen’s garden as well as so may other parks…:
This tree was very strange – ￂﾠsome branches were leave-less ￂﾠ- and they had blooms, the others were with lots of leaves, but no blooms:
In the corner of this garden there is a Chinese garden, a very nice one, we still remembered from last visit and enjoyed it again:
Part of it’s ‘floors” are made form river rocks stacked vertical in a pattern:
We walked around the center, visited the Anglican church standing proudly on the hill, surrounded with plants and flowers:
Their school:
And some beautiful houses:
The next day we drove to Tahunanui beach, which is close and convenient and nice enough, a little similar to Lithuanian beaches:
I did some yoga there, but didn’t swim. The wind was blowing :-), and felt some cold I got from travels, but wading was warm enough. There are nice hotels by the beach and a monument for te great explorer Abel Tasman:
And then we drove again to the center to eat, walk in the parks and galleries. The gallery in an old tobacco factory had a ceramics exhibit of which I liked this author for her cute Fridas (seems liket hey were Fridas Kahlo) figurines, and the others that I forgot how she named them:
The floors in that gallery looked like created by Modrian :-):
Then there was our biggest find – the Suter Gallery of Art, which should be a big gallery, but is being restored, so it is moved to a temporary location and was housing only one exhibit by a New Zealand – Australian artist Euan MacLeod. And this was a lot! To see such very high art was a privilege! ￂﾠSorry artist, I will show some of your works in my not very good pictures for people to get an idea how good they are and what a message you are transcending. It is hard for me to express the feelings I got for I am not a linguist or art specialist. But the works are very deep, very philosophical, very sad and at the same time calm, some seemed tragic to me, telling humanity where it is falling- ￂﾠto a hole…Very self analyzing, searching for identity, and of course what “rang the bell” most of all to me is that he is am emigrant and I am , too. There were works on that topic also…So here are some of them:
He didn’t travel much, just to Antarctica and some more, but he travels deep… By the book that I saw there- ￂﾠhe created so many paintings, participated in so many exhibits and still is not done yet :-). it somehow seems that through him God or some Information field or a Field of Eternal love or whatever we call that entity ￂﾠ-that He is sending us His messages…
Here the artist is keeping his feet in a volcano caldera.
here – he is on Mt. Cook, lower- in the rain…
I even photoed the analysis of his art, if you can read them -maybe with a magnifying glass:
I will repeat this poem printed here in my own words: Wherever you go – you will never get far enough from where you were. And the burdens you carry…
This painting is called “Memories. Blue”
So after such a visit, we just walked around and got to the Anzak Park where all the nelson heroes who died in different wars are commemorated:
All the flower beds by the paths are crosses – I haven’t seen such arrangement in parks anywhere, but cemeteries, and this is a cemetery in a way:
To crown the day we drove to Founders Heritage Park and walked around -it is a replica of how Nelson looked when white settlers came and built a city here. It looks like a toy 🙂 and the girl who was bar tending their famous handcrafted beerￂﾠ (a very good one!) said to me that she feels like she is working in a fairy tale:
The last look at nelson from a hill from where we could climb more and reach the center of New Zealand, but we didn’t, got lazy…
There is one more interesting story that happened to me here. While we drove on our street I noticed Amber House. So I took a chance and went to them just to say hello, to say that we also are Amber Inn B&B. I enter the house and the lady there comes forward and sais – oh hello, remember. we have stayed at your place, with our kids! Isn’t the world small? I had no clue, I forgot about them completely…To my shame…I didn’t even remember them mentioning about the name. So now I asked- ￂﾠwhy Amber. They are not Lithuanians, he is Irish. she is Philipino named Mila – because their last name is Amber! Here is their house:
And this is how our Tasman Bay lodge looked inside:
A view from our window: