Nelson

Our freedom camping spot was in a shopping plaza parking lot last night. It was super convenient as it was right in the center of town. Surprisingly, the town was pretty much a ghost town after 5pm as everything seemed to close. We headed to do a local walk that provided great views of the town. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t want to agree with us and it started raining 5 minutes into our hike. We pushed on as it was only 15 minutes to the lookout. The views were really nice and you could look off and see the rain clouds moving around and all the dry locations that we were not in. After heading back down we bee lined for a nice café to wait out the rain. We spent a couple hours here emailing and the like.

Next it was time for some shoe shopping. Rebecca’s hikers had taken a beating and were taking on water like the titanic when it rained so it was time to upgrade. There were quite a few hiking shops around town so we checked them all out and settled on a nice new pair of Meindl’s. I’ve always wanted a pair of these but they don’t sell the in Canada. Rebecca lucked out. The only issue is we didn’t have any break-in time so we would have to bring both pairs of boots on the next hike.

Shopping completed, we hit the road to drive out to Moteuka for the night to camp. Moteuka is only an hour from the Abel Tasman Trail head. The freedom spot would actually have been great if it was summer. It was right on the beach and they had an interesting Ocean swimming pool. Kind of like of fenced in rectangular that filled with seawater.Read more