Time for us to Move On

Saturday 3 January

Time to move on - we packed up, said goodbye to Luke & thanked him for letting us stay at the vineyard (Yamille was still asleep) and squeezed out of the vineyard, heading northwest towards Nelson and our destination, Mahana.

Quick stop at Pelorus Bridge where we claimed to be a bus for parking’s sake, then on through Rai valley, happy to see the traditional Christmas tree by the roadside near Hira, past the signs to Cable Bay where we spent Christmas 2024, past the Boulder Bank at Nelson and on to Mahana. Our POP for the next 3 nights or so was a cute but sloped spot in an orchard, run by other NZMCA members.

Once we had ramped & chocked up we had a quick lunch, a siesta then hopped on the bikes to cycle down to Mapua Wharf - a perennial favourite.

It was buzzing - a live band, heaps of people & black dogs, a few mad pier jumpers, and a massive queue for fush & chups at the SmokeHouse with accompanying seagulls diving hopefully for scraps.

It was a hilly climb back to Banjo but we made it and rewarded ourselves with pork chops then ambrosia/Eton mess as we try to eat up all the festive goodies before healthy eating starts on Monday!

We’d been told that the NYE fireworks at Kaiteriteri that were cancelled due to bad weather had been rescheduled for tonight at 9.30pm so we headed over there with half the top of the South Island only to find the barge with the fireworks had broken down so there was an hour delay - turned into a cancellation at 10.45 - but we called it quits after checking FB reports at around 10.30, getting out before the traffic chaos began!!!