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The main reason to visit Nelson was to meet Rosie's kids (refer to queen bad idea bear), Pip and Maggot. Nelson is described as the most liveable place in NZ and has the most days of sunshine. It was raining when we arrived. The best activity on a wet afternoon is visiting museums (or perhaps sitting in a pub by an open fire, but we could not find such a place). We chose the World of Wearable Art and Classic Car Museum (aka WOW), which consists of a load of ridiculous outfits and some old cars; how the afternoon simply flew past! I hate to admit it, but it was really rather interesting; cars are my thing anyway, but the whole art thing captured the imagination to a degree. The collection is a sample of entries from an annual competition which has categories such as 'Bizarre Bras' and "Burlesque", and whilst none of it was practical for the office some of it was clever or humorous. Google it.
The weather cleared up by the evening and we walked (rather too far for Jodie's liking) to meet Maggot and Pip in the pub. It was called the Sprig and Fern, was very comfortable and made its own beer. Luckily I noticed that 'Wee Heavy' was 6.5% volume before I got another pint. We had a lovely night with Pip, Maggot and Sam (who is another Brit who has settled out here) and surprised ourselves by not getting hog snarlingly pissed; we obviously missed the influence of the Bad Idea Bear.
The next day was warm and cloudless and we started the day with a jog. Jodie is going from strength to strength on the jogging front and is pounding increasingly long distances and steeper hills; I am going to need to do extra PT to keep up.
We then went off the Nelson Market. A few people had told us it was a good market, but I was skeptical; in my experience markets throughout the world are a multicultural s***e stuff soup. Nigerians sell crap leather goods, there are eastern Europeans with poorly made mobile phone accessories and Asians flogging cloths only fit for RAF Officers. Of course there are also the bloody hippies selling distinctly amateur arts and crafts and dying to bore you with stories of what inspired the (my guess is hash and a Led Zeppelin album). Nelson did break the mould, and whilst there were a good smattering of hippies and the odd cheap sunglass stall (which was good as my 'Oakley's' , brought in Sao Paulo for $5 had decided to self destruct that morning) most of the stalls were selling really good food or very good local crafts.
Nelson is also famous for being the centre of NZ and the first place in the country to stage a Rugby match. If only we hadn't taught them the rules!
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