Dear Julio,

It appears, according to my book, that the area around Nelson is full of alternative sort of people, drawn there in the past by cheap smallholdings.
I am really surprised that in the land of prime lamb meat, bountiful fish and shellfish and a vast array of fresh vegetables, you only manage to eat at McDonald. Honestly!!
Anyway, for your birthday (if you’re still in Nelson) go to Chez Eelco, 296 Trafalgar Road and eat a bowl of their recommended fish soup or something else if you like at my expense (I will pay it into your account). The Redwood Cafe in Kerikeri north of the town is also good, in case you don’t make it to Chez Eelco.
Did you walk to Tahuna Beach 5km from Nelson? One of the nicest, apparently.
A good thing to take for your health is the special NZ honey: Manuka honey; one spoon a day. Have you tried the special drink L&P (lemon)?
You could try and buy some whitebait (small fish, bishiques) clams, mussels, crayfish, a little butter and garlic. Five minutes cooking and there you are (Bob’s your uncle).
Apparently, there is better sailing to be had in Kerikeri.
Yesterday, Daddy was so bored thast I caught him watching something at random on the tele. Dear me!
Looking forward to details of day 3 of your walk!

Grosses Bises,

Mama

Jul had trouble blogging, so he emailed:

hail

blogger dousn’t work.
heres todays blog.

hmm…didn’t have time to go to town today, so i’m useing the hostels computer. this means i can’t get the third day down today. a few af us from the hostel went to the beach today. very plessent. massive beach with a sandbar which go for mile out into the sea. it took about an hour and a half to walk to the beach from the hostel, and after a long day we didn’t fancy walking back, so we decided to hitch a lift. very strange. we split into two groups, there were five of us, and no sooner did we stick a hand out when a flurry of cars came to pick us up. daniel and i had to wait ten minutes max for our car. we were picked up by a german lady who had been a backpacker herself, so made a habit of picking up hikers. i’m looking into which is the best bus company to take me south. i will book tomarrow i think. right see you.

Get that third day in, before you forget what happened!

China Meiville has released a “novella” entitled “the tain” – sounds interesting but at 8 quid on amazon for 89 pages, i aint gonna get it! But the scar is nearly out in paperback, so i’ll get that.

oh and the war of the flowers is published on the 1st of may apparantly:-)

Mmm.

Paradiso?

Phone number …?

Did you drink speights? tis the best! better than db any day!