Spacious shores

I kind of got lost today. On the beach. We’re in Nelson, the Sunshine Capital of New Zealand, and it’s our last stop on the South Island. The further North we go, the more tropical it becomes. Strange, eh? It’s because the more south you go, the closer to Antarctica you get, and south winds are cold because they blow from that icy continent! I’ll take the tropics any day. Before I tell you about how one actually can manage to get lost on a beach, I better backtrack…

En route to Nelson, we stumbled upon a sign advertising a very high suspension bridge. To prepare myself for the ominous bungy jumping event that is only days away (I keep having nightmares about it!), I said it sounded like a great idea to walk the wobbly boards. But it wasn’t scary until we determined that yes, it was decently high, and “Oh my god, bungy jumping is probably 4x as high as this…” So instead of dissipating my fear, it only compounded it. Hmph.

Suspension Bridge

Once we checked that cheap thrill off the list, we found ourselves in Nelson, which really did boast all the sunshine we were promised. We checked in our hotel and headed straight to the beach with a most expansive shore. The water was too cold for me, but the guys braved it, though it was shortlived. I opted for a long walk down the shore while they tossed around a baseball. I somehow lost my bearings on the vast expanse of sand that lay before me and couldn’t find them once I headed back. I hadn’t realized how far I walked, and therefore had a hard time determining how far back to walk. It was a very large beach and the tide was low, so the shore was not only seemingly endless horizonally, but depth-wise as well.  I ended up feeling a little anxious–certainly more anxious then when on the suspension bridge. Although while looking fervently for them I did meet a few interesting characters including a group of boys who placed a bet that I was Spanish (honestly! I’m as fair and blonde as they come!) and an old man with decayed teeth who took a break from his Soduku puzzle to ask me why I was wandering around so aimlessly and then wouldn’t shut up about Canada once he heard my accent.

I finally found the boys. Jamie said something like, “What were you doing? You kept walking right by us. Were you lost!?!”

“Uh, kind of. It’s a huge beach and I couldn’t see you.”

“We saw you walking back and forth and were laughing our asses off.”

Thanks James. What are cousins for?

Oh James