Motueka road trip

For no reason at all we decided to go on a nice road trip to Motueka some 3 hours drive away from Picton. People said why, and I just said because its there and we are not; seemed as good a reason as any.
 However we really enjoy Motueka a,medium size town  in the centre of the fruit growing area, plenty of apples pears kiwi fruit and hops and vegetables too

There is a old school building right in the main street which is now an interesting museum, with a nice cafe next door.

   We stayed very uncharacteristically in a Back Packers Lodge the  'Hat Trick ' .http://www.hattricklodge.co.nz/  We booked a double room with en suite for only $70 a night,
we can recommend it to anyone. Like a motel but so much better. The big bonus as far as we are concerned is the huge communal kitchen, dining room and TV lounge where everyone gathers together for the evening. So nice to meet up with about a dozen or more young people from all over the world. We chat all evening with them and share free fruit and coffee and when one of the boys baked cookies he shared them with us too. We all sat around doing jig saw puzzles not even watching TV.
I spent some time playing the poker machines and doing some winning which pleased me.


We drove out to Kaiteriteri Beach a real tourist haven but it was nearly deserted today we had the beach of golden sands to ourselves.

The tide was right out in the estuary and the mudflats exposed, there were masses of seabirds feeding in the shallow waters I watched them fighting over the best positions. Sadly I was too far away to see them in the photos.

The weather was so nice while we were there but in the morning as we were about to leave it started raining. the main street still looked nice with the Autumn tints in the big street trees and flowers all in hanging baskets along the footpath.

We found this strange statue as we drove through Nelson

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