Christmas Eve in Nelson and Golden Bay

After our mountain bike ride on the Queen Charlotte Track, we hit the road again and drove to Nelson, a funky little place about two hours from Havelock. We had lunch and did a beer (for Zack) and cider (for me) tasting at a restaurant called Sprig and Fern (thanks for the recommendation, Kate!). Then we spent a couple of hours browsing in the stores and walking around town. It had a very hippie sort of vibe; it reminded me of Boulder, Colorado.





Next, we headed to our campsite for the night in the Golden Bay area of the Abel Tasman National Park. Like last Christmas Eve, we camped right near the beach. In this picture, I'm standing right outside the back of our campervan, and you can see the water through the palm trees.










We had chili for dinner (which also happened to be what we had last Christmas Eve!) and enjoyed our Saint Clair wine with strawberries and cheese and Makana chocolate. While we were snacking, Santa came around and handed out candy to all of the campers!










We later took a walk along the beach. There were several other people doing the same thing, so it was a festive atmosphere, especially with the music provided by a bagpiper. Because nothing says Christmas like a bagpiper on the beach, right?!

Also like last Christmas Eve, we had a beautiful sunset to enjoy on the beach. I'll end with two of my favorite shots from the night. I'm not sure if this was our last Christmas Eve we'll ever spend on a beach, but I wouldn't mind doing it again if it looks like this!

Smith's Farm and Mountain Biking the Queen Charlotte Track

After our wine tasting afternoon, we stayed the night at Smith's Farm in Havelock. It had some fun animals and a pretty hike on site that led to a big waterfall. If you stay in the woods until dark, I guess you can also see glowworms, but I did the hike in the daylight.

On Monday morning, we rented mountain bikes and rode part of the Queen Charlotte Track, which we could access by riding only four kilometers from our campsite. New Zealand has several famous hikes; some take a full day and others take several days. The Queen Charlotte Track is one of the longer ones; it's 71 kilometers and takes most walkers four or five days and bikers two or three. We only rode to a major lookout and back, which took us a couple of hours. But that still gave us great views of the Marlborough Sounds. The panoramic shots below show you our whole view (if you combine them together).

It was a fun mountain bike ride and a good way to start the day, even though the weather was a little drizzly. But there was still some driving to do and more fun to be had on Christmas Eve Day! Stay tuned...

Camping on Christmas Eve

One thing that we kept hearing over and over is that as expats, it's a good idea to have a "plan" for Christmas if you're not going home. That way, you won't be sitting around feeling sorry for yourself and/or missing your family. So our plan was to camp along the Great Ocean Road for a few days, and that's exactly what we did.

We rented (hired) a car, threw our surfboards on top, packed our camping gear and lots of food, and headed out on Saturday morning. Zack hadn't been very far down the GOR, so it was fun to drive on the curvy roads and see the beautiful beaches and scenery with him. At one point, we even saw a big turtle doing some flips out in the water.

We checked out a few of the free campgrounds along the way, and we finally settled on Johanna Beach, mostly because it was right next to the beach, and it was gorgeous. We picked a little campsite in a corner, set up our things, and headed to the beach. We had beautiful, sunny weather on both Saturday and Sunday (Christmas Eve). It rained in the middle of the night, but that just made for better sleeping! Zack tried some surfing, but the rips were strong and the waves were too big for us beginners. So we stuck to boogie boarding and playing on the beach. This next shot gives you an idea of how deserted (and beautiful) the beach was. Zack is running along the water with the soccer ball.

Here is a picture of our Christmas Eve dinner. We had some Frito pies. Zack calls them pepperbellies. Basically it's chili on top of corn chips with cheese on top. Since they don't sell Fritos here or anything that resembles corn chips, we used corn tortilla chips. It worked. With some wine, it made for a pretty decent meal. There were plenty of Tim Tams and other chocolate treats for dessert. 

After dinner, we watched the sunset and each opened one gift. With a view like the one seen below after a day spent on the beach in the summer sun, Christmas Eve wasn't too shabby!

Tomorrow morning we're headed to Tasmania for the Falls Fest, a music festival. So I'll have to catch up on more Christmas camping posts and Taz posts when we get back. I guess this is my last one for 2011; I hope you keep reading in 2012!