Hello everyone. We woke up without an alarm this morning which was nice and hightailed it out of Blenheim as we really didn’t have anything to do here. We grabbed a couple of Hawaiian rolls from the Countdown and hit the road. It was about a 1.5 hour drive to Nelson. It was quite a nice drive. Lots of rolling green hills to look at. Not nearly as scenic as some of the other drives we’ve done, but nice nonetheless.

We arrived at Nelson and went straight to the beach. It was one of the very few beaches we have seen since being in NZ. Dunedin had kind of a beach but it was freezing and we didn’t walk on it, but this is a legit beach. Obviously not as nice as we have in Australia though. We spent quite a bit of time walking on the beach and sitting and relaxing. It was nice to get some beach time in.

After our chill at the beach we walked across the road and got some fish (burgers) and chips for lunch. It was funny because when Ronnie said can we get some Fish, he didn’t understand what he was saying. Even though the dialect in Australia is very similar to NZ, there are some very noticeable differences. The fish burgers were massive and difficult to eat. The fish batter was too thick. Overall not great. It was cool that they had vinegar in a spray bottle to spray the chips with though.

We then drove through town and had a look around. Nelson is very different to other places here. It is quite reminiscent of Orange. Not huge, but not small either. A bit old and rough around the edges. Not bad though. We checked into our accommodation and had a bit of downtime before heading out again for our 6th and final escape room in NZ. I know what you’re thinking – ANOTHER ONE?! Yeah. We’ve taken to escape rooms as they are an enjoyable and good indoor activity. This one was called Aunty Betty’s Flat. Basically the story is, old lady dies, you get her inheritance if you can find all her best belongings in a puzzle house. We ended up doing it in about 42 minutes with no clues. It wasn’t bad, but it was easy. We’re not sure if because we have done so many escape rooms now that we are just getting better at them or we are doing progressively easier rooms?

After the escape room we still had some time before our dinner reservation so we headed back down to the beach as the sun was setting and spent some time walking around and then playing on the playground after all the kids had gone home. This was nice.

Our dinner was at a place called Namh – Thai with a twist. It was on the waterfront and we got seated at a table with a view which was nice. For entree’s we got some Roti with a sweet chilli jam and some tom yum calamari. The roti was good and the sweet chilli jam tasted delicious with it dipped into it. The calamari was good, but it wasn’t really any different from normal calamari rings. Why they called it tom yum calamari we don’t know.

We also got some cool drinks. A Strawberry smoothie which was made out of some soda so wasn’t really a smoothie at all but was delicious and a thai milk tea which is always awesome.

For mains we had a Sizzling Black Pepper Beef and Pork Belly Lava with a side of garlic fried rice. They were both supposed to be on sizzling plates, but unfortunately neither of them were actually sizzling when they came out – they were actually a bit cold. We didn’t really enjoy the meat parts of it as they were a bit overcooked. We did really enjoy the vegetables with the sauce over the rice though. Really fresh and good tasting. Was it any better than Smile Elephant in Bathurst? No. Was it far more expensive? Yes.

We grabbed some fuel from the servo for our drive tomorrow and went to Countdown to grab some bread and biscoff for the next few breakfasts as we are sick of getting bakery food.

Spending:
Countdown Breakfast & Snax – $18
Coffee at beach – $4
Fish burger & Chips lunch – $35
Namh Dinner – $107
Fuel – $72
Countdown – $20
Total – $256

Much Love,
Ronnie & Aimee.