Havelock to Nelson

I slept really well last night until about 6am. And then it got really cold enough to wake me up, however having the trusty spare-jumper-in-the-sleeping-bag I was soon warm again! I planned to pack the kit up and drive up the site to the toilet block and have a shower and be off, unfortunately, I must have left the interior light on in the car overnight and had flattened the battery. Lucky it wasn't too flat and a chap with an RV near to me had jump leads and I got a start off him but by now it was 10:30 and not wanting to get charged for another night for not clearing the site by 10am I set off straight away without a shower. The road to Nelson wound it's way up a long pass surrounded by pine forests and then dropped down onto the bay at Nelson. I parked up in the central car park, went for some cash and then phoned around a couple of hostels for a bed for the night. The first 2 were full but the 3rd; The Green Monkey had a bed so I drove the short distance round to it. It was a typical New Zealand bungalow style house on the edge of town and the owner showed me around and gave me a map of the area with some local walks on it. I had a quick shower and then decided to take a look at 'The Center of NZ walk'.
The start for this was just up the road from the hostel on the local park and then it steeply zig-zagged up a hill through bushland, and the noise from the crickets was intense. Eventually it broke out onto the top of the hill where a marker post and plaque marked the 'official geographic' centre of New Zealand – which seemed quite handy that this hill was there! I sat at the top for a while and regained my breath as it was fairly hot and a clear day. The views were good all around the viewpoint and I took a set of panoramic pictures. Wondering what to do next I had a look on my PDA for some geocaches figuring there had to be one near, there was, and I was right on top of it, sort of. The clues to it required you to decipher some clues from the legend boards at the summit to create a new Latitude and Longitude which then would reveal the location of the cache itself. The coordinates I calculated were about 300m away from the summit but to get off the top you had to follow the path around the summit fully around the hill before I could get going in the right direction. I got to a point where the path split and I followed the right had track which took me to within about 38m of the cache but it was up a steep hill covered in dense bush and behind a barbed wire fence. Back to the split in the path and I followed the other trail which lead up and onto an open field and then up to another highpoint with a transmitter mast at the summit, now I was above the cache and descended down to it still in gorse bushes but easier going and after a few minutes rooting around I found the Tupperware box and recorded my find. Making my way back to the hostel I realised it was time for another shower! The owner has earlier pointed out that there was a rather good brew-pub across the road and I felt I deserved a pint or two so popped over to take a look. The place was only small but had over 20 different beers on tap from wheat beers to pale ales and bitters and porters. I plumped for the 'Bitter' which actually wasn't too bad but as it's kegged and not cask it still had that gassy-ness that all beers here seem to have. I had also been told about the Chippy next door which I was told delivered you order to the pub, so after the first pint I went and ordered some fish and chips and sure enough was asked if I was 'in the pub' and was presented with a plastic toy cow to take back as a table maker – things are getting good. Back in the pub the head barman took me through a selection of the ales including a Scottish Ale which was fantastic but a little strong at 6.8% before tea! so I took a pint of the summer pale ale which he said went really well with the fish and chips I had ordered. No sooner had I sat down with beer and what I can only say are the best fish and chips I've had since leaving home arrived; real chips at last - not frozen ones! I rounded off the evening with a couple of pints of the excellent porter before retiring the 20 odd paces across the road to the hostel; it would be heaven if I didn't have to drive tomorrow.