French Pass

The next morning we decamped and drove off, as planned, in the direction of French Pass. All this is still on the mainland, so to speak, but it is towards the top of the Sounds area, before you get to some smaller islands. The roads beyond Elaine Bay are all gravel, pretty good gravel nonetheless, with relatively little traffic, and some great vistas.

Incipient traffic cone tree?

After Memorial Picnic Bench (!), the vistas open up...

Thus

At this, um, rural mailbox, we mailed a post card to our
grand-daughter Penelope; we've mailed 4 or 5 so far, only one
of which has gotten through, and it was held up for weeks
in Brunei...

From the hamlet of French Pass, looking toward neighboring
D'Urville Island

Its not quite the end of the road

We took a brief walk to see the Pass itself; saw this weka

French Pass

Up closer

A bit of a maelstrom, as we saw in Norway

Scenery on the way back to Elaine Bay

Grim reminder department: you really don't have a lot of
traction on gravel roads

They were very, very lucky

Fresh Mussels, 2; Or, Too Much Of A Good Thing

The good news is that the mussels stayed down. By about 10:30PM, however, as I was blowing up the air mattresses, I began feeling a bit queasy. This expanded, as it were, to full-scale intestinal discomfort, chills, malaise, which lasted three hours. Remembering an unfortunate incident in the tent, in Florence, back in the 80s, I wisely moved to the car, where Vicki as always fulfilled her roles as good wife and good nurse. At least this time it was not the wine. By 1:30, I had recovered enough to move back to the tent and slept the rest of the night. By morning I was pretty much OK. We carried on our program of driving on to French Pass, then back to Pelorus Bridge, and to Havelock, and beyond. But I had temporarily lost my appetite for mussels.

The Mussel Pot in Havelock is my favorite South Island restaurant; I had been
looking forward to eating there for weeks; but not this day; the people there
suggested my malady had been caused most likely by over-indulgence; I couldn't
disagree; it was way too much of a good thing that my land-loving gut was not
quite up to...

Anyhow I was just fine by the time we were at Pelorus
Bridge for lunch

Able to enjoy the fine scenery

Thus

Fresh Mussels, 1

Mussels are among my favorite foods, and I have been a fan of New Zealand Green Lip Mussels since the late 90s, when a seafood joint in Missoula, now long defunct, got them regularly from a Canadian supplier. Greenies are about three times larger and three times better than any other mussels of my acquaintance, especially the pathetic little black hobbit mussels one typically gets in the US and Europe. One more reason to like New Zealand, where greenies are plentiful, fresh, and--unlike most other edibles here--cheap. Imagine my delight in the following...

By the time I got back to the marina, two double-trailers were
off-loading the mussels in huge bags

Thus

Thus

And thus

Each truck, I later learned, carried 28-30 tons of mussels, so
each of these bags weighed about a ton

I timidly asked whether, if I brought my own bag, could they maybe spare just
a few?

And so I scored about a kilo, which was all I thought I could eat in one evening
(our fridge was full)

We set up camp at the Elaine Bay DOC campground

And I was a happy camper, New Zealand green lip mussels and a nice soft
Marlborough wine

First of three skillets steaming in butter, garlic, shallots, whitewine ...

Another, larger mussel boat pulls into the marina

Better than manna from heaven

As the fifth of the trucks whizzes by, 150 tons of greenies headed for the processing
plant in Christchurch...less a kilo for me

Elaine Bay, Arthur Track

Having rested up in Nelson, and endured as many sand flies as we could even there, we decided to drive further on up the coast into the Marlborough Sounds area, to Elaine Bay and then on to French Pass. We stopped at Elaine Bay to do the Archer Track day hike, which was said to be as scenic as the Queen Charlotte track.

The pavement ends at Elaine Bay

Thus

Elaine Bay's tiny commercial marina

A kilometer or so down the track, way beyond any homes or buildings, some
kind soul had left a couple of lawn chairs

And further down still, two nice wooden chairs; we took this as a good omen

The track goes on through the bush mostly with nice views of the coast and
islands

We walked as far as Deep Bay, 5km

And rested at a fisherman's hut there

Nice views on the way back too

Tall timber

Elaine Bay

We're sitting in the wooden chairs, enjoying the views, when we spot an
approaching fishing vessel, heavily laden, and it occurs to us both
simultaneously that this is a mussel boat, about to unload its harvest at Elaine
Bay; Vicki urges me to go on ahead and watch the unloading of the beloved
greenies

Nelson Cathedral

So it's been, what, weeks since we have seen a cathedral, and when we read (seriously) that Nelson has an Art Deco cathedral, we knew we had to see it. It sits atop a hill, Church Hill, in a beautiful park, with a commanding view over the city.

West facade; hmm, well, the square top night suggest Art
Deco; Gothic Art Deco?

Integral buttresses; flying would hardly do in an Art Deco
structure, right?

Interior stern shot; painted wooded ceiling, matching piers;
well the mauve maybe is somewhat Art Deco

Starboard transept, with maze, just like at
Chartres

Looking abaft, through the choir (no misericords!), from the
altar

Port transept, overwhelmed by the organ

Rose window? Is this what an Art Deco rose window would
look like?

History of the building; something went
terribly, terribly wrong...

Elevation; we couldn't decide whether it is a
blind gallery or a blind triforium, but it's
definitely blind

Bell tower

As seen from town; we didn't quite grasp what
was Art Deco here, but if Lonely Planet and
Rough Guide say so, then so it must be...and
anyway, we'll be back in France in just a few
more weeks....

Chetwood Forest And Beyond

Back across Tekaka Hill and over toward the Bay lies Chetwood Forest, where Sam and Frodo left the Shire and where Aragorn led the four hobbits "into the Wild." Well, the location was some woods and clearings in or near Abel Tasman National Park. We had the GPS but couldn't identify anything in particular. But it certainly felt like it was out of the Shire and into the Wild. Especially the sand flies.

Thus

Thus

And thus

View toward Nelson

Weird rocks in the vicinity

We'd had enough adventure for the last several days and
crashed in a cabin at the Maitai Motor Camp near Nelson;
an administrative day and then a do-nothing day

Of course, only a couple hundred meters away, near the
"static" part of the camp, was another lovely Kiwi rig