Friday, February 13, 2009
Ok it can stop raining any time now. How I woke up without hangover and feeling surprisingly well remains a mystery. Troy was shocked as he thought for sure we would be heading for a rough morning. Instead I got up around 7 a.m. and did some laundry. I proceeded to walk over to the laundry room in the rain with the small suitcase filled with clothes. Upon arrival at the laundry room I encountered a little mouse. Not all that surprising being that the accommodations were situated next to a vineyard. Rather than keep company with the mouse, I decided to walk back and forth in the rain instead of staying in the laundry room.
After breakfast at MVH, we picked up the tickets for tomorrow’s wine festival then headed out to Havelock for a green-shell mussel cruise. We found “green-shell” and odd name, and the captain of the vessel made mention that “green-lipped” was no longer in fashion and “green-shell” was now the politically correct terminology. Whatever. The scenery was beautiful and although it was not warm and quite overcast, the rain had stopped before the cruise, which made the trip quite fine indeed. After touring the sound and passing through the mussel farms, the captain stopped the vessel in an area directly inside one of the farms. The cook proceeded to bring out bowl after bowl of wonderfully prepared, green-lipped mussels. We devoured a number of mussels and quaffed a glass or two of fine Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.
During this time the captain further discussed the farming techniques – simply amazing and this is the only place in the world you can get these little guys so fresh. The mussels were excellent! They were fresh from harvest this very morning and were prepared with only in a little Sauvignon Blanc in the kettle. Rita and I became suspect when the bowls were first delivered; the mussels were really quite large. They were very large, but oh so good.
During the cruise we made the decision to stay in the area and head up to Nelson for dinner. This turned out to be quite a drive. It was not more than 80km but the ride went through some winding mountain passes. We arrived at Nelson and headed to City Centre where we staked out a parking spot. From reading the guidebook, we had our sights set on a particular restaurant. Once we finally reached the address, we stood in front of a closed up shop – out of business. We proceeded to walk the streets of Nelson scoping out various eateries. As we walked along Trafalgar Street, we passed Bardelicious. It was not open yet, but after scoping a few more places, we decided to take a look at the Nelson Cathedral atop Trafalgar and return when the restaurant opened. We did return a few minutes past opening, which turned out to be quite fortunate as it was a Friday, and clearly reservations were necessary about 30 minutes after opening. The place was cool, but we found that it was quite difficult to eat another batch of mussels that weren’t quite as fresh as the ones we had earlier on the boat. Nelson was a cute town, but the car proved no match for the winding roads it took to get there. This sealed the fate of returning this way later in the trip and visiting Abel Tasman National Park – maybe in another lifetime brother.
[modula id=”4826″]