Oh Woe Is Me!

The dolphin swim was cancelled due to lack of swimmers :-((

So now I'm off to Nelson, via Blenheim at lunchtime. Further pants is the buses to Nelson are all full, but they'll take me to Blenheim & I can use the thumb from there.
It'll be odd to hitch with a big pink suitcase rather than a big black backpack, but, hey, what the heck. New experiences & all that ;-)

Update on the Maori brunch at Te Papa on Tuesday - Tea = Kawa Kawa leaves & Manuka blossom, Pesto made from Piro Piro ferns (the famous NZ fern), pine nuts & flax seed oil, bread made from Kumara, & manuka honey. Makes me hungry thinking about it!

This hostel is great. Hostess, Shiera, is a New Yorker, & has mega hair. She passed it on to her daughter, & between them they could operate a successful wig shop! They would have to be very curly, blonde wigs, though!
Here they've got free tea & coffee all day, plus free breakfast.
There's also a pool here - they train divers for scuba trips, & I had a room to myself again. Plus, I did my washing yesterday & it was mostly dry before the rain arrived yesterday afternoon (1st rain in NZ).
I'd definitely recommend Atlantis for anyone in Picton for the night. And Picton's so cute - the chaps I shared a table with at the pub last night thought it was funny I called it cute, but it's lovely. Come & see for yourselves.

The difference between here & Rowena's in Wellington is huge. EG clean kitchen, clean linen, clean hostellers & clean rooms! Win some, lose some, & this is definitely a win some.

Good social too. Irish pub had live music & huge portions. I couldn't eat it all! & that's me speaking ;-P. Plus 2 Kiwis didn't object to me asking to share their table & we had a great natter about the All Blacks, Scotland beating Australia & rugby in general.

Breakfast calls - so off to eat.
May not get back on today, so TTFN
OAO