New Friends in New Places

I've met a few wonderful people while living and learning in Nelson. One of them I happened to have met at the first cabin I stayed at. I spent many weekends watching rugby in the wee hours of the morning with Amy, and another wonderful Kiwi, Miriam. Amy's birthday came about and she invited me to tag along with herself and 7 other locals to West Bay, along the Queen Charlotte track. I said yes immediately and it was a fantastic weekend. After a quick hour and half drive, followed by a hour and a half tramp on the QC track, we made it to the bach!

Birthday breakfast table 

Bach with large porch for sunning 

View from the bach

View from my room!

Everyone brought enough food to last a week, so had a large bbq with fish, sausages, salads of all kinds, and dessert. This was in between a tea before dinner and a tea after dinner. We made a large fire in the fireplace and roasted marshmallows and chatted deep into the night.

The next morning was time to start the birthday celebration! After a yoga session on the porch and a large pancake breakfast with bacon and every kind of topping you can imagine, we hiked the 1/2 hr over to the Lockmara Lodge for a beer and a swim (by swim I mean jump into the water and get out as fast as physically possible). The lodge had a lizard farm, sheep petting farm, bees, pigs, a glow worm cave, and large hotel and cafe. A half marathon also happened to be finishing up so we enjoyed the band and festivities with all the runners.

Birthday Swim!

Parrot at the lodge

Birthday girl 

After the lodge we walked back for some kayaking and fishing on our very own jetty. Kept three spottys for the bbq, which we cooked up as much food as the night before. Wine all around followed by birthday cake and champagne. Dan bought his ukulele and we had a little group singalong time around the fire. Late to bed again, slept in, large breakfast, hiked back out, and back to town. Here are some of the view from the way back.

Part of the group at the top of the "mtn"