A beautiful drive today. These roads are well graded and well signed and I love driving on all the winding roads (lots of curves and hairpin turns). I porbably wouldn't like it if there were lots of cars, but again today it was very light traffic.
We turned off at Hari Hari to go to do a coastal walk on the beach beside the Tasman Sea. It was 20 km off the main road, but it certainly was worth the extra drive. It was a beautiful walk through some woods and then along the beach. Some of the New Zealand scenery really touches me and this is one of those times. The tide was out and there was lots of driftwood on the sand and we could see the big snow-capped mountains off in the distance. There were lots of really interesting rocks along the beach that had multicolored streaks running through them and it made them look like they were wrapped up in yarn or string.
We then got ice cream cones and headed off again for Arthur's Pass. It started raining along the way and there were no rooms at either hostel when we got to Arthur's Pass. We thought about tenting but we weren't too keen on the idea of settign up tents in the rain. Besides, we wanted to cook pasta with sauce and garlic bread tonight and make another salad. The woman at the second hostel had told us about a place 15 minutes down the road, which she said had dorm beds. It's called the Beasley Hotel, but they have a lodge section for backpackers in addition to the hotel rooms. We got here and it is lovely. We have a twin room and so far there are only 2 other people here. It's very quiet, super clean and has a well-equiped kitchen.
I'm just finishing a cup of tea while I do my notes and I'm about to have a glass of wine and read my book for awhile before we start cooking supper.
We checked out a few hostels and stopped at one that was for women only, which seemed to be very well run and neat and clean, but unfortunately, it was filled. The woman who ran the hostel let us use her phone for free to try to find a room and the first two places we called were also full. Luckily, we got a twin room at the Round-The-World Backpacker. On the phone they told us they only had one dorm room for the night and a twin for tomorrow, but they had a no-show so we got the twin room for 2 nights.
We checked in and used the internet before we went to see the city center. I had an email from Susan telling me that she never got my first set of journal notes from New Zealand. Bummer! She has my second set so I asked her to put a note on the webstie that the first set are missing and then just post the next set.
It was a short walk to the center but we really had nothing in mind to do. It was a pretty grey day with rain on and off, so we decided to walk to the movie theatre. Nothing we wanted to see was playing at a convenient time so we decided to just go back to the hostel. I got a Starbucks coffee and a Greek dinner to take back with me.
We got back and still haven't been able to get our clothes in the dryer (there is only one washer and dryer). We got them washed before we went out this afternoon. Hopefully we will be able to dry them before it closes at 9 tonight. We are sitting in our room, planning our hike in Abel Tasman National Park that we will do for three days starting April 3rd, and listening to lots of noise in the hostel. Nothing like the peace and quiet of last night's stay.
I just went down to the kitchen and although it is somewhat noisy it is still neat to be here. Some people were cooking and a couple was playing chess, and someone was on the internet. They have a tent out back that serves as a tv room and it has sofas and chairs and a carpet.
It's 8 PM and even though I had a great dinner and three cookies for dessert we both decided we needed more food. We just went across the street (in the rain) to get ice cream. Shari got a chocolate-covered mint ice cream bar and I got a nutty buddy cone. Delicious!
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