Deja Nelson

April 8

We made a full circle on the South Island, back to the exact city where we started our journey two and a half months ago in Nelson. Tomorrow, we fly to Auckland for six weeks to explore the North Island.

We even stayed in the same Airbnb and got spoiled once again by our wonderful host Meredith, who had fresh lemon-blueberry muffins waiting for us when we arrived.

There were six, but we ate four before snapping a photo 😬.

We sorted and repacked our things (oh, we have a lot of crap!), shifted stuff around, did laundry, went for lunch at Bobby Franks where we had our first great NZ meal back in January and enjoyed a relaxing day.

We packed up a bag to send home with a great service that Stuart and Michelle at Mt Rosa Lodge recommended, Send My Bag. What a fantastic service to send home unaccompanied luggage from most anywhere in the world. It was significantly less than the cost of NZ slow post. Still expensive, we just bit the bullet and organized a pick up with the tremendous help of Meredith and her husband. (Thank you!) They are true Super Hosts!

Sixty six pounds lighter, we felt like entirely new people. It’s an expensive lesson to learn and we hope to never make the mistake of overpacking again. The fact of the matter is we learned that you really can do with so much less.

Thanks to my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Clint and Cheri, for being the helpful recipients of our extremely heavy duffel bag of excess stuff!

For dinner, we ate Pic’s peanut butter and crackers, not interested in venturing out, and made plans for our few days in Auckland later in the week.

We head to Waiheke tomorrow, an island east of Auckland, for sun and relaxation.

We are sad to say goodbye to the South Island, yet excited to begin our tour of the North.