Not going far today.

Hello again! After a lovely restful couple of days with Maureen I am about to move on again though not very far! I was going to head for Nelson, but have been invited to stay at Wakefield, not far away, with Carena, one of the scrapbookers I have "met" on the net! She is a great designer of scrapbooking stuff too! I am looking forward to meeting her.

Anyway, over the last couple of days, Maureen has been driving me about showing me some of the lovely countryside around Motueka. One day we ended up at Farewell Spit which is the long thin hook of land at the top northwest end of North Island. I actually flew over it on my flight to Invercargill. It's so obvious from up there! We didn't venture out onto the spit itself as it's a long way out and on sand! What a view though! The tide was out but through the visitor centre binoculars we could see a big flock of black swans along the edge of the water. There must have been hundreds of them! The Golden Bay area we passed through to get there is lovely. Lots of fruit is grown, apples, hops, kiwi fruits - I now know what the Kiwi fruit tree looks like!!! We stoppeed at a pretty town called Takaka where there are lots of arty crafty shops and a tree lined street. Very pretty! and then on our return from the spit called in at a sacred Maori site Pupu Springs, to see this beautifully clear lake bubbling up in a couple of places thousands of litres a second bubbling out of vents in the earth's surface. It looked like it was boiling. The round walk to and from the lake was through rain forest again and once again, despite repellant the sandflies got me! I think I have scratched the bites to pieces, they itch so much!

On Sunday there was snow on the higher mountains in the distance and the air was a little cooler! In fact I put my socks on! Going north I could well be able to go without them again, but it seems south is feeling the chill of winter now. We set off on another wee run in the car through Upper Mouterie - where I had THE most wonderful fruity icecream! Actual fruit was mixed with plain icecream in a special mixer and piped into a waffle cone! Delicious! What bliss! At Mapua we stopped for lunch at a lovely cafe that Maureen knew of. Panini, a fruit smoothie and homemade cheesecake later, we decided to walk that off by looking at various of the galleries and shops. One gallery was full of beautiful local art and crafts. What ideas prople have! They are so creative - and Norma, over there in Roslin, you could compete with the best of them!

Mapua Wharf

On the way home on Sunday we dropped into Kaiteretere to see a local beach resort where the houses were mostly holiday homes and the smallest oldest beach house was sold not long ago for over a million dollars! What the other houses must be worth is mindboggling! Little Kaiteretere, across the bay has grown up more recently and there the houses are, using Maureen's word, very ostentatious!. ne in particular caught my eye as we drove through the new estate! It had some carved insignia on the front, two of which were very obviously Scottish crests! One looked so like the Inglis crest! Maureen noted that the names of the owners were on the mail box at the end of the drive. Guess what? They WERE Inglises! There IS an Inglis family in the area, connected with some of the fruit farms, very wealthy by the seem of things. They own a lot of property in Motueka, and have this incredible house in Little Kaiteretere! As Maureen said, "What went wrong? How did we end up at the poor end?" I wouldn't want a house like that myself though. I love the old style Kiwi houses with their wooden weatherboards, their verandahs and louvred windows. A nice mountain or sea view and a lemon tree in the garden, and I'd be happy!

Maureen's cottage is very pretty and compact, basically with one bedroom but there is also a small "annexe" as she calls it, a room accessible from the carport, that is quite delightful, and rather like my little "Palace" at Punakaiki, though the rain when it fell during Friday night didn't hammer and clatter on the roof! I was very comfortable in there, thanks so much Maureen. In fact thanks for everything! It was a great visit.

So today Maureen set off south to a golf tournament and I am heading off to meet Carena. Before I leave Mot, I had to see the Sunday market, held in a carpark off the main street. There were all sorts of home produce stalls, cheese, sweets/lollies, fruit and veg, along with craft stalls, pure wool knits for something like $30 - thats about 12 pounds - wooden artifacts, origami -amazing stuff! I should go back and ask her if I could take a photo! There were junk stalls, book stalls, the required ice cream van and burger stalls..... I had a good wander, but despite seeing some books I wouldn't have minded reading, I left with nothing! What restraint!

So now I am sitting here in the internet cafe in Motueka High Street, having read and replied to emails and written a few others. I feel I have been here for ages but the cost isn't very high! It has a total at the top of the screen and so far it has cost me $8.80! So I reckon I will now try to find some pics to add in, especially as I didn't give you any last time!

Talk again soon.