We were sad to leave Takaka, but not too sad, because we were very excited indeed for the next leg of our journey. We were heading to Nelson! Kara and I had been there briefly before with Summer and Jase back in Blenheim, but we hadn't had a chance to spend much time. We were thankful as hell for our new brakes as we drove back over the Takaka Hill. We went through the adorable town of Motueka on our way there, and stopped by the side of the road to get some Nashi Pears. Jordan knew about them, but I hadn't heard of them before! They're basically a cross between pears and apples. Do we have them back home? I do not know but I hope like hell-- they're DELICIOUS.
We had hoped to be able to be in Nelson early on Saturday for their awesome Saturday Market (which we'd gone to with Summer and Jase), but the car problems in Takaka stopped us from making it on Saturday at all. Instead, we decided to try and arrive early enough for their Sunday market to see what all that was about- and we did, but perhaps it wasn't worth how quickly we ended up making the drive. The Sunday market was more a flea market then and arts and crafts market, and so it wasn't quite what we were looking for. HOWEVER, the market was located next to the EXCELLENT gelato store Penguino, so, you know, that was okay. (SEA SALT DARK CHOCOLATE CARAMEL GELATO. CRY WITH JEALOUSY. I'LL WAIT.)
After exploring the city a bit-- and visiting an isite in a desperate attempt to figure out how to plan our Abel Tasman adventure, which was next on our list after Nelson-- we headed for our hostel. Tramper's Rest was certainly one of the most comfortable and cozy hostels we have spent time in while in New Zealand. It's run by Alan and Piri out of their home-- the hostel is a house, with only 8 beds, and it really feels like a home. Alan and Piri also have an adorable son, J., who is only about 7 or 8 and who we had a great time playing with for the time we were there. He showed me how to braid a necklace, and he and Jordan had some very intense sword fights! And we did math together. (My math is about his level, so that worked.)
Our original Nelson plan was to stay there for 3 days and explore the city, and then backtrack to Motueka and go out to Abel Tasman National Park from there. Abel Tasman can be explored in many ways- single day kayak trips, multi-day kayak trips, kayak and walking trips, kayak and water ferry trips, single day walking trips, multi-day walking trips... and we were having a really hard time deciding what to do. Once we realized how comfortable the hostel was, though, we made the decision to stay in Nelson and explore Abel Tasman from there. We told Alan that we were having a hard time, and he went through a few options with us. Then he checked the weather, and discovered that the next day (Monday) was going to be by far the nicest weather all week. So we made a very split second decision to do a single day guided kayak tour, and I think that was maybe the only way we'd have been able to make any decision at all!
We decided we'd better have a low-key evening if we were going to kayak the next day, but we were all in the mood to get out for a bit. We decided to walk to the Center of New Zealand! It's located on a hill about a 20 minute walk from our hostel. The spot is not the actual geographical center of New Zealand-- instead, it's the surveyor's center, which apparently means that it's the point that other points considered their relation to back in the days before GPS. There was a cool monument up there, and a great view-- our first view of a real city in a long time.