We struggled to find a place to camp the night before on our way over to the Nelson region from Blenheim, so we opted for a roadside freedom spot where another van was parked up. It’s tricky knowing what is possible on the freedom camping side of things but we definitely felt reassured by the fact that another van was already parked for the night.

The reason we were heading over this way was because we were due to skydive at 11am on the 3rd in Motueka with Skydive Abel Tasman. Unfortunately it was a thick, cloudy start to the day so we went straight to the Motueka airfield to have a chat with the skydive company. They wanted to push us back to 1.30pm, we were okay with this but the outlook wasn’t so good. We opted to work on the blog and editing at an internet/sushi cafe on the main street in Motueka and by noon we figured the weather wasn’t going to change and decided to postpone the skydive until Monday and go back to Nelson to take advantage of being in a town and some finer weather for Helen’s birthday night out!

We backtracked and drove to Nelson whilst stopping en-route for lunch at the Ruby coastal scenic drive where we found a handy little campsite that would become useful to us over the next few days. We were in Nelson by the afternoon and checked into the Nelson Holiday Park which at $36 would be our most expensive night camping in NZ yet. However on the plus side we could walk into town, there were free showers and a decent kitchen too.

On our way into central Nelson we passed by an eclectic vintage and antiques shop supplying everything from bone china teapots to retro posters, old picnic sets to mannequins, and clothes to furniture. We love these kind of places as they give us ideas for our future home! The owner was more than happy for us to take some photos as we explored her vast collection.

When we got into central Nelson we stopped by the Art Deco Cathedral before taking the steep path up to the centre of New Zealand. There is a monument marking the spot and great views across Nelson and the mountain ranges beyond. Back in Nelson we had some good pub grub and cider at Mac’s home brewing pub ‘The Vic’, there was a good atmosphere and we liked the way Mac’s is branded. It’s also really good to see so many local brews leading the way. We ended our evening at The Free House a converted church where some live Blues was taking place. We had intended to enjoy the live music but instead we opted for a bottle of a local Sauvignon Blanc whilst enjoying the ambience.

The following day was Helen’s birthday and first thing Dave baked a lemon drizzle poppyseed cake! Woooop! Happy birthday to me happy birthday to me….

For the rest of the day it rained and rained so we didn’t take many photos. We opted for the Nelson Museum, the Sutra Gallery and popped into Mountain Designs to have a quick catch up with Brian aka Two Backpackers who we know from twitter. Small world.

Later on we drove back to Motueka to watch a film at their local artsy cinema Gecko. We opted for Submarine which we both enjoyed immensely and vowed to own it in our DVD collection soon! We ended the day with fish and chips from the Happy Chippy on the main street, although we had bought food for dinner it was raining so heavily we couldn’t cook anywhere and nothing else was open!

That night we camped at the $6 a night campground that we’d stopped at the day before on the Ruby Coast. It was pretty flooded but we found a decent spot and the rain eventually calmed down.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We started off the day by eating a fairly good breakfast included in our accommodation at the hostel, we’re not sure how 4 mornings of eggs and toast would go down! We spent a short while documenting the hostel downstairs as it really is a lovely space. Following on we took the number 56 bus to the Chatuchak weekend market which took around 45 minutes to get to. It’s a much cheaper option than taxiing or getting a tuk-tuk there and cost 26 baht between us. When we got there we went straight to the information office for a guide of the area, there are more than 8000 market stalls in a 35 acre area of land so we thought it would be good to know where we were going and plan our route.  We wanted to pick up a few items ready for the south and some replacement clothes for one’s we’ve been wearing over and over since we started travelling in October.

We started by exploring the vintage/second hand section which is any stylists and fashion designers dream. It houses anything from vintage tea dresses to leather bags, retro sports wear and re-worked seconds into new garments. It has to be said that the Thai’s on are top of their game when it comes to vintage trading, they know what sells to Westerners and they have a good depth of stock. Helen was very close to picking up some old tea dresses for when we get back home but managed to resist spending the pennies. We crossed through many fashion stalls and picked up sandals, shorts, t-shirts and vests whilst taking a few shots along the way.

The most memorable photo for us from this collection is of the giant tattooed man sleeping next to his market stall, surrounded by badges, paintings, bags and handmade crafts. He was covered all over in tattoos, piercing’s and leather and was disguised by the goods that swamped him…There were certainly many characters around. We walked by the music area and watched young children playing on their violins and we passed through the antiques section too. Seriously though you can buy pretty much anything you want at this market, we’ve read about illegal animal trading going on here too so if you do see anything you’re not happy about you can always report it to the police that patrol the site. We think we got what we wanted though with little fuss and enjoyed some decent street food too.

Later that night we took the ferry south and made our way to the flower market, it’s a 24 hour place with fresh flowers being prepared day in day out. If you get there late or very early in the morning it will be a real hive of activity. We got there at about 6.30pm at night and wandered through the street area and also some back street warehouses where we saw some of the work that goes on behind the scenes. We did want to go to other markets but with only one weekend in Bangkok most of the better markets take place on Saturdays and Sundays and there’s only so many markets you can get to in 2 days!

We ended the evening at a lovely restaurant overlooking the river right next to our ferry stop in Thewet, we had great views but the service was a bit of a mess, good job we weren’t in much of a rush.