Fly Screens and Wearable Art

Blenheim, a rural service town with a population of about 25,000 was our port of call for Thursday night so we could wake up early today and have fly screens fitted on the van. That's right, no more mythic images of Hart trying to attract bugs. After reading the post detailing our bug problem, John, the owner of the campervan company, e-mailed to say that he had screens for our windows. Since we didn't know where we were going to be when, he had them couriered to Blenheim and we had them put on at a Toyota dealership. Other than laundry, that was the most exciting thing we did in Blenheim. (I'm not discounting the importance of either event.)

The diversion altered our route some, but we headed back north to Nelson to the World of Wearable Art and Collectable Cars. Since 1987, Nelson has been the home of an annual international art competition of wearable art. In some instances, the "wearable" part is questionable; in others, the "art" part is questionable, but it was all fun to look at. We're not sure why the cars were there. Perhaps to attract manly men who wouldn't want to go look at "clothes"? I know I'm using a lot of quotation marks, but words can't describe what we saw. Look at some pictures of this years winners to see the creations for yourself. For even more photos, click around on the rest of the show's website.

Nelson will probably be our home tonight, but we may move onto Abel Tasman National Park tonight rather than tomorrow, hoping to maximize hiking and kayaking time. I could spend more than a few days in Nelson eating, people-watching (great clothes!) and drinking coffee. We'll let you know where we wind up.