A Very Moving Day

Wednesday 8 January

Mixed emotions day today - morning spent cleaning Banjo and packing up to leave our lovely spot on the vineyard. It was pouring with rain so not great opportunity to wash her outside at this point. Jez and Abby meanwhile were beavering away at official paid work - Jeremy in the moho with Harley and Abby in the vineyard kitchen! Harley was ever hopeful that someone would take him for a walk down the vines so I took him for one length.

We said our goodbyes to the Tomkinsons and left them to finish the working day at the vineyard while they decided where they would go next. It was sad to leave them, but not that long till we see them again in Wanaka...

After our fond farewells, we headed off back to Nelson - sunniest place in New Zealand…

Quick stop for lunch in Havelock and a whizz round the op shops, before we climbed the hills again, passed the turning to Cable Bay and arrived at Tahuna Beach Holiday Park around 3:30ish... in pouring rain!

After the freedom and space of the vineyard, squeezing into our "beachfront" space between a moho and a caravan and opposite 3 small private dwellings in the cold & damp was rather disappointing - our view was obstructed by trees and turned out to be more swampy tidal estuary than beachfront.

We’d planned to meet cousin Jill for tea but she had a campervan emergency and it was still raining so we booked tickets to see “Paddington in Peru” which was adorable but sadly the weakest of the trilogy. Yet again Nelson was shiny and wet and really rather chilly - what is going on???

We had a delicious snacky dinner at Hawker House - bao bun, spicy dumplings and delicious green beans - then back in more rain to find the leak in Banjo had recurred - dammit! Will contact the dealer again in the morning - gotta sort this before Caroline joins us on Friday evening!