The centre of New Zealand

I was incredibly excited to discover that there is an exhibition showing in Nelson called the World of Wearableart, or WOW for short. In second year of uni I wrote a research paper all around the subject of when is a fashion garment classed as a piece of art. I was surprised that this competition has been running for many decades because when I was researching this topic it never came up at all. It's a world wide competition although it seemed most of the contestants were from New Zealand. I guess if your country hosts the contest every college and university would be pushing for you to enter. The garments were weird, wacky, amazing, clever and innovative. One thing they all had in common was the sheer time and effort that had gone into every detail. So much creativity and imagination had been poured into every idea and all the pieces were completely unique. It's amazing seeing how different minds interrupt the same brief and that's one thing I love about design. The exhibition also played the runway shows of each category, something that was more a theatrical performance with different characters acting out their garment surrounded by lights, smoke and dancers. It looks like an amazing show to go and see and it's something I'll definitely be looking into when it next tours the World. We sat in the video room watching the runways alone or at least we thought we were alone. At one point I turned around and almost jumped out of my skin to discover a women's face about 20cm from my own looking at me. It was rather creepy. The exhibition space was also showcasing fancy cars so we walked around admiring these as well. After a quick coffee and a cheese scone in the cafe we headed into Nelson itself. The city centre was horrible to drive in because we are in what feels like such a big van and every hazard possible seemed to be popping up every few metres. People take more risks in a city so I was paranoid someone was just going to pull out into the side of us at any moment. We luckily made it to a carpark in one piece and set off to explore the city. The Victorian garden was our first stop and it highlighted how much the British love a good garden, so much so they made one here when they settled. It was beautiful to walk around with a river running through it and even an oriental Chinese inspired section. After walking down nearly every pathway we headed away from the city and began at 20 minute steep ascent to "the centre of New Zealand". After the quite intense hike we reached the top of the hill which had 360 degree views out over the hills, city and mountains beyond. Reading the information we then discovered this isn't actually the centre of New Zealand as advertised. Nelson as a city is in the centre of New Zealand and this hill top is the centre of Nelson but the actually specific point of the centre of New Zealand isn't here but somewhere else in the city. I think they decided to put it up a huge hill to make people all sweaty and tired so they head straight to get a drink from a shop when they get back down! Even still it was a nice place to sit and admire the surroundings. We also visited Christ Church, which is a little confusing when there is a city called Christchurch. It was a rather disappointing church that was made of concrete and not so nice to look at. After visiting a few shops to get some groceries and other bits we headed to the only decent sounding freedom camping spot in Nelson. It's 3 allocated spaces in the carpark for a park. It got dark quite quickly and I had a horrible time trying to find the toilets in the dark and it actually ended up being quite spooky being in the park. Luckily we have gained 2 other people in the other spots so we aren't so alone here which feels a little safer!Read more