Top of the Island

We hugged the west coast of South Island as far as Greymouth and then cut across country heading for Nelson on the north.

It was Monday 3 March and we had to be in Picton to catch the ferry on Thursday so we did a good day's driving without stopping much, travelling through various neat towns each with its small supermarket, bakery, cafe, bank and liquor store before coming to a halt for the night in Murchison.

Main street of rural town

There's nothing to report of significance from our stay in Murchison except that it was the scene the next morning of heated discussion number 63 (I haven't bothered to tell you about numbers 4 to 62 for fear of becoming boring).

Somewhere, somehow, in Murchison the stylus/pointer I use with the tablet computer, and without which posting to the blog becomes more difficult, got lost. The loss was not discovered until Tuesday morning, and in spite of turning the van upside down and returning to the restaurant where we'd eaten the night before, the stylus could not be found.
It was then we discussed who had been the last to see or use the stylus, and why he or she had not put it back in the usual place.

Lacking the stylus, and the culprit still not having owned up to his or her misdeed, we pressed onto Nelson.