Thursday, March 23: Very cloudy in the morning and a little cool, but warming to clear, blue skies; in the evening some dark clouds
Walking: 2.0 km
Genie’s
Genie offered to take me to the Brook conservation area for a bit of a walk this morning. This is a predator-proof zone not far from the centre of town, along a couple of roads that I had not yet reached, and is in a valley whose dams provided Nelson’s first drinking water (entry $5 donation).
A couple of fantails, a few bell birds, and one weka were very much all that could be seen or heard; a few trees had the distinctive orange berries that I had seen on the Heaphy, but by the time I had returned the staff were out again and I could not ask what they were. Seems like karaka might be a possibility, but for the fruit size.
Genie had wanted to take me back into town before going off to her cricket match. That left me with a little time to buy some stuff at a supermarket, the hat I had espied at Rollo’s for $30, and head back here for lunch. I was considering going swimming but I had to shower and wash as much of my stuff as possible for it to dry in the course of this now fine day. Having reduced myself to a shirt and underpants I elected for a bit of a nap for the afternoon.
Thought that it might be a good idea to print out the bus ticket this time, as it is a voucher, so headed off to the library and despite the horrendous bureaucracy of booking a machine soon had my page printed out.
In the meantime PPP had been churning through the Heaphy photos, and I noticed that the $exp_br variable needed to be unset at the end of every loop, otherwise new bracket sequences are simply added to the old. Some panoramas were being made possible (view of the Heaphy delta from Mackay Hut will have to be truncated due to erratic camera behaviour), so I tried some of them out, but Hugin was being a bit of a nuisance. The stitcher had had the “Shut-down when done” box clicked and proceeded to start powering down after the first sequence. Got everything started again and at least have some usable images.
Genie was going out to her club tonight & then dancing rock’n’roll, but I am heading for an Indian place. Finally settled on The Indian Cafe, 194 Collingwood St., Nelson 7010, for a Chicken Tikka as a main together with plain naan for $21, and a beer for $5. Chicken Tikka is rapidly overtaking Tandoori chicken as the dish of choice and no wonder – no bones & much the same price.
Am trying to get a plan together for the last week. Will see about carting the computer down to Picton.
