NZ Day 9 – Ferry for Kerry memories in Nelson

Headache had gone but a 6am alarm wasn’t very enjoyable in preparation for our ferry across to Picton on the South Island. The weather wasn’t all that appealing either rain hadn’t let up all night for our 3 hour crossing. As soon as we boarded, we took some motion sickness pills and booked some cinema tickets for Transformers which turned out to be quite good. Both of us felt ropey a third way through and I had to seek fresh air before returning to the movie.

As soon as we docked we headed for Nelson, Kerry’s home some 12 years ago in a convoy of campervans. It was field after field of vineyards of Marlborough country. We stopped in Havelock for lunch, world capital for green shell mussels. All the shops had comedy mussels doing the activity the shop represented.

Landscape changed to Twin Peaks like country with hardly any cars around. As we approached Nelson, Kerry’s memory started to activate. Personally, I was surprised how built up the place was from her description and headed out to the WOW museum which would have been just a dream to the organisers. It was quite a modest place with the classic car part bolted on. Kerry’s show bra was on display to our delight and the receptionist recognised her from all those years ago.

After seeing all the costumes and video the museum had to offer we went back into town looking for Kerry’s old friend, Christine and her shop ‘Labels’. Unfortunately, her friend wasn’t there but the shop still was and bizarrely stocked the same shirt Kerry bought from Tokyo but under a different label. Nelson didn’t have that much else to speak of so headed into the neighbouring town of Richmond, another place of her NZ residence. For Kerry, this was a place of work at the Arthur Wakefield (now renamed as Appelmans) restaurant and motel. The bar side was very nice giving us free coffees even though the old owners had gone years ago. We booked the restaurant next door for the evening’s meal. After setting up camp at the local Top 10 campsite (heaving with half-term pre-teen families), we had an enormous 3 course dinner (no manager freebies this time).