Our home . . .

. . . for a few days is this lovely little cottage on South Street, Nelson. These cottages have been the subject of several blips and it is only by chance that we happened to be staying in one of them. I will look into this further and give some links later.

Suffice to say at the moment that this is New Zealand's oldest preserved street, the cottages built in the 1860s as workers' cottages. We are staying in this one with the red door. Two years ago we stayed in the one next door with the green paintwork. The one we have is beautifully and comfortably restored and furnished and we are now settled in and enjoying a 'home from home' evening before planning what we are doing with our time in Nelson. (You may find another blip of this street in someone else's journal today)

We left Greymouth this morning and headed for Nelson. We had decided to follow the coast at first and the road was a spectacular one, hugging the coastline very closely most of the way. The west coast is quite stunning in its wild rockiness. We stopped off at Punakaiki to see the Pancake Rocks. A track takes you up close to some of the most extraordinary rock formations. I have put two photographs in my folio. High Pike may eventually blip a picture of the rocks and some information (when he can get the internet to work with his iPad that is!)

From there we continued on following the Buller River, through deep gorges and valleys. We stopped at Murchison for lunch - the venue for another big Blipmeet tomorrow.

Soon after we arrived in Nelson, we had a Blipmeet of our own, as TMLHereandThere very kindly came to the cottage and gave us some of the local lowdown on what to do and see. It was lovely to meet her and I'm sure we will meet again before our stay is through.