Petrichor

Today it's raining in Nelson, it is pouring down, so it's given me a chance to catch up with friends online using chat and also to reply to a few e-mails and browse the Mountain Biking website.
When I was researching the possibilities of what to do on a bike here last week, I thought I would cycle up to the bay over Takaka Hill, it being 112 km, I knew it was quite a distance, but thought with some regular training each day around Nelson that it might just be possible.
However, the trip up with Helen and Kemp on Monday presented me with the reality. Takaka Hill may be possible but only if really fit, and I'm not right now. This time last year perhaps, it is a huge hill with no let up for 11 km. Then at the top is the Canaan Road into the edge of the Abel Tasman National Park and the Rameka Track. So my thinking now, is to cheat and get a bus up to the top of the hill and cruise down through Takaka and onto Patons Rock, where Dad & Angela are spending New Years and where we will be until I return to Birmingham. From Patons Rock I can do various day rides.
Helen & Kemp took me to Waikoropupu Springs on Tuesday, I found some great photos here of this amazing upwelling spring system in the hills above the bay. I heard some Tui or Bellbirds occassionally (it's difficult to say which because I did not see them and they imitate each other). The water of the Pu Pu Springs is very clear, we saw a huge salmon cruising about at the bottom. From the car park, duck boarding snakes its way through forest with some interesting information boards at points that illustrate the stages of the return of native forest. The Department Of Conservation manages this and many other sites. I visited their centre in Takaka and intend to return as their work is so vital and interesting. Dad is much amused when I refer to them as the Department of Conversation, it's great to make him laugh.

Definition: petrichor