Nelson -- Food, Wine, Art and .... Rugby

We've been in Nelson for 3 days now and it is a wonderful place. On the north edge of New Zealand's south island it is said to be the sunshine capital of the country-- and on our experience we would agree. The weather has been delightful during the days -- sunny and spring like -- with very cold nights.

Nelson is the type of place you want to go to if you enjoy food. We had 2 absolutely wonderful dinners at Hopgoods and the Boat Shed. Fresh fish, good wine ... yum.

On Monday we toured the wine country in Marlborough. It's a good thing they can't ship most of their wines to the US or we would have spent alot of money. As it is we bought a bottle to take with us on our travels! Today (Tuesday) we went art shopping -- the highlight was meeting Mike Ward, Green politician, Nelson mayoral candidate, artist, jewelery maker and utter character. It tells you everything you need to know about what sort of man he is that when Katy admired a small pen drawing he had done, he simply gave it to us as a gift.

There was also street craft fare with music today. Those guys up at the top of the post are the Ukes of Hazard -- and exactly like it sounds they played country music on their ukeleles! Weird but interesting.

Tonight was the US v. Italy game. The US lost 27-10, which in some sense is a strong game for us. But in the end we need to start winning those sorts of games. From here, it is onward - south down the west coast for the next 5 days ...the rugby is over and now the grand adventure really begins.