{"id":1544,"date":"2016-12-04T05:23:30","date_gmt":"2016-12-04T05:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/?p=1544"},"modified":"2016-12-24T05:25:01","modified_gmt":"2016-12-24T05:25:01","slug":"412-nelson-and-picton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/travel\/412-nelson-and-picton\/","title":{"rendered":"4\/12 Nelson and Picton"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning we head for Nelson.<\/p>\n

This is the northern city of the South Island and is a reasonable sized town.<\/p>\n

On the way in we pass an old abandoned house. This could be our new home, but Maggie isn’t convinced. You see quite a few properties like this which are replaced by more modern residences.<\/p>\n

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We arrive in town to closed roads and traffic.<\/p>\n

Traffic in the South Island is something of a rarity and so we find a parking spot and go to investigate.<\/p>\n

It transpires we have arrived just in time to see their Christmas parade complete with floats and of course Santa.<\/p>\n

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Its small town with the fire department, police department and all the local businesses sponsoring floats.<\/p>\n

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Everyone enjoys it and there is even a pipe band to rouse the passions.<\/p>\n

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Once the parade is over we walk up to the top of the street where the war memorial is.<\/p>\n

Here there are a range of inexpensive restaurants serving freshly cooked food.<\/p>\n

The chips which were enough to feed a small family were some of the best I have had for a long time.<\/p>\n

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After lunch we head out of town towards Picton. This is where the ferry leaves for the North Island.<\/p>\n

The car park at the coast contains a statue of the sea Goddess.<\/p>\n

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The road is typical.<\/p>\n

It shadows the coast before climbing over the mountain only to become a cliff top road hugging the coast again.<\/p>\n

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Once past the Rai valley you start to see the Queen Charlotte bay open up and the rest of the journey is dominated by the views down into the bay.<\/p>\n

At the top of one hill is a walk up to a lookout and the view from the top is well worth the walk. Even Maggie admits it.<\/p>\n

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We choose a site on the bay shore for the night. \u00a0This is to be our last night on the South Island and it iOS with some sadness that we plan to leave.<\/p>\n

Whatever is in front will I am sure be good but the South Island has been awesome.<\/p>\n

We decide to stay somewhere called Aussie Bay just after xxx. I’m not sure why but it is well worth making the detour of the main road.<\/p>\n

One surprising thing is the number of houses that are up for sale on this road.<\/p>\n

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It is just of the road and yet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning we head for Nelson. This is the northern city of the South Island and is a reasonable sized town. On the way in we pass an old abandoned house. This could be our new home, but Maggie isn’t convinced. You see quite a few properties like this which are replaced by more modern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1544"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1563,"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544\/revisions\/1563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irwinarmstrong.com\/bigtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}