The crayfish (what we call a rock lobster up north) get pretty big on the South Island. Usually they don’t stay still long enough for a photo.)

In Nelson this afternoon, a beautiful little seaport city grown around the heart of a Victorian town. About five times the size of our own little tourist town, but on the surface, at least, it feels like an example of urban growth done right.

The plan is to head to Motueka this evening, and after that spend at least more than 24 hours in one place. We certainly have been putting the miles on.

Yesterday was a ramble down (up?) NZ State Highway One. It’s their Pacific Coast Highway, running up the east coast of the South Island, winding in and out of coves and beaches along their side of the Pacific. An awful lot to like, and we kept pulling over for pictures (and local meat-pies-of-the-day, and improbably-flavored potato chips. I’m not looking forward to stepping on the scale when we get back). A marsh walk at the Wairau Lagoons to watch egrets, geese and absolutely stunning flights of black swans.

We were scheduled to meet an internet acquaintance of mine in Blenheim at noon. I’d been corresponding with Graham for years now about warbirds. I knew he was an expert on the Curtiss P-40, but not much else about him. When I realized we were going to be within striking distance of his home, I reached out, and he asked us to come by the airfield.

Some of the things I hadn’t realized about Graham: he’s the long-time editor of Classic Wings Magazine. He and his wife Jane founded and now run the Omaka Aviation Heritage Center and world famous biennial Omaka Airshow. And, on top of all that, maintain and fly an enviable personal collection of gorgeous antiques and classic aircraft.

And yet, in spite of all the responsibilities they must be juggling to keep all these things going, the two of them took pretty much the whole afternoon off to personally show us around the exhibits. Stunning exhibits. A veritable squadron of four(!) Fokker Triplanes, all flyable. Immersive dioramas created by Peter Jackson and his special effects team (Jackson is an avid pilot and owns and flies a number of the aircraft on display at the museum). The immersive exhibit on the siege of Stalingrad had me actually holding my breath. Two thumbs up for a beautifully developed and maintained labor of love, and immense gratitude for the time Graham and Jane took to make us feel like pampered guests.

I expect that we could have kept talking airplanes until we’d exhausted all the oxygen in the Southern Hemisphere. But the rain was coming, and Devon and I had reservations for the evening at a “holiday park” in Nelson, a couple of hours west across winding mountain roads. (D has observed that all roads in New Zealand seem to be windy – either windy mountain roads or windy coastal roads.)

The way west was just as gorgeous as the coastal highway we’d followed north, but without the opportunities to pull over and take pictures. Or to let the inevitable buildup of polite but impatient drivers behind us by. They were polite, as I said: whenever we did find a pull-out to let folks by, they inevitably flashed their blinkers or gave their horn a little toodle in a gesture I’m going to interpret as “thanks!”

We were too exhausted by the time we reached Nelson to do anything but park the campervan and retreat to our respective cave time activities. Those last couple of meat pies we picked up at the petrol stop in…where was that?… were going to have to wait for breakfast.

Which they did. After which, a rejuvenated David and Devon walked all the heck over this town. Beach walk at Tahunanui, then downtown out to the “Founder’s Park” Heritage Center and back, and all the way up Trafalgar St trying to decide between an intimidating number of (all highly-rated) coffee shops. Seattle could learn something about coffee obsessions from Nelsonians.

Downtown Nelson and downtown Seattle at identical 500m scales.

Tonight? Headed to Motueka, as I said, around the bottom of the top of the bottom. It’s a thing, apparently. Couple of nights there, then we’re off to Wellington (bottom of the top), where I’m supposed to do an a couple of days of actual work!

I’ll keep you posted.