Two At Sea

April 11 – 14, 2016

The Mussel Pot

This is the iconic restaurant in the area for mussels and the place we stopped for lunch when driving through here a few weeks ago. It’s a nice place, and the food was good, but the sheer number and size of the mussels on our shared platter was overwhelming. (See our previous post). We just never felt like going back after that.

Slip Inn

We discovered best way to enjoy the Slip Inn: get the pizza. Their other food is pretty good, but the portions are skimpy. Meanwhile, the pizza is fantastic and filling. For those who love pizza, there’s no reason to get anything else. Meanwhile, this has a great location right on the water with a view of the marina. And a cat. All restaurants should have a cat. (Note: The painting was done by the incredible local artist, Rebekah Codlin.)  You can click to enlarge/scroll through gallery above.

Havelock Hotel Restaurant

We also discovered the best way to enjoy this restaurant: skip the pizza and order the fish and chips or the pulled pork sandwich. Actually the pizza was pretty good, but the fish and chips were great. The pulled pork sandwich was upsetting. Why? Because Rich and I used to occasionally make the trip into Hollywood to go a BBQ dive just for their special sandwich. That sandwich is one of the things we miss about Los Angeles, and now here’s a sandwich that tastes so much like it! The upsetting thing was we discovered this during our last meal in town. Had we known, we would have gotten one of those every day! It’s so annoying to discover a special food just as you’re about to leave a place. Here’s a link to our previous post about the pub.

Captain’s Daughter

We only came here for breakfast, but it this old English Tudor-style building it looks like it would have a lovely atmosphere for dinner. As for the breakfast, the eggs Benedict with smoked salmon was so good that after splitting an order, we decided to get a second round. Their coffee was great, too. Overall it was a nice treat for a breakfast out. If we get back to Havelock we’ll try it for dinner. (You can click to enlarge/scroll through gallery above.)

Inlet Bakery & Cafe

This is the place in town for a casual breakfast. We only had coffee here, but the coffee was very good.  (The ciabatta loaf we bought here was very good, too.)

I’ll make a mention here that we really enjoyed our time in Havelock. That “feels-great-to-be-here” feeling lasted through our stay. It’s just a likeable place overall. Below a photo of the beautiful black ducks that would visit us during the day. –Cyndi

April 12, 2016

Part of our plan in coming to Havelock was to make a run to Nelson, 46 miles away, to pick up a couple of packages we’d had delivered to the Nelson Marina. Although they’d never met us, and we only had a vague reservation for a slip, the marina staff had very graciously received our large box and were holding it for our arrival. My renewed passport was also due to arrive. It would be at least two more weeks before we’d get to Nelson on our boat and since we don’t consider the Nelson Marina our personal storage facility, we thought it would be nice to relieve them of the box. Plus, I’d been nervous about my passport and was hoping it had arrived.

After finding out a bus trip would require an overnight stay in Nelson, we were relived to be able to rent a car at the local gas station. We picked it up in the morning, got our trim flat whites (coffee with steamed milk) to go, and made the 1-hour drive over the hills and mountains to Nelson. We arrived before lunch and were thrilled to pick up our box and my just-arrived passport from Bruce in the office. This was our first visit with the marina office, and we could tell already that we’d like it here.

Now it was time to get to know our future home-base a bit better. We drove along a waterfront area before heading back into town. Without the Easter Holiday crowds we’d encountered last time, the town was, as we hoped, much less hyperactive. We thought we were having lunch either at Burger Fuel or Nosh, both of which we’d confirmed were here months ago. It turns out we we’re both insane (but that’s not exactly a state secret). Finding out neither place has a branch here, and not having done any other restaurant research, we ended up at dependable McDonald’s.

After lunch we took a walk around town, admiring again the profusion of flower baskets, brick walkways and outdoor cafes. We also noticed independent food carts around, always a good sign for a city. We initially thought Nelson could be a city that we’d like, and today it looked possible it could be a city that we’d love. Time would tell. –Cyndi

April 12, 2016

 

 

 

 

 

We’re in Havelock and you know what that means (or if you don’t, I’ll tell you)… PIZZA.

Maybe it wasn’t the best in the world, but it kind of was to me – after two weeks without it!

Havelock is charming. We just got in last night, took fifteen minutes to see the whole town, and are really happy to be here. We’ll stay a couple of days and then go back to seeing the Sounds (hearing the sights?).

Here’s where we are on an interactive Google map… -Rich

April 11, 2016

We took a walk through town, which wasn’t much of a walk as it’s only a couple of blocks long. This place has the feeling of a somewhat dusty, quiet town on a highway, usually a terrible combination. But somehow Havelock manages to retain it’s low-key charm and appeal.

I think it helps that the main road is slightly hilly, and passing cars slow down enough not to be menacing. There aren’t many people around outside, but the business owners inside are folksy and nice. The locals choose to live here (as opposed stereotypical small towns where people feel stuck), and in fact seem proud and happy to be here. And there are enough tourists to keep the local economy thriving and justify having an i-Site, New Zealand’s tourist information center. (Below, a few photos from our walk around town; click to enlarge/scroll an any of the following galleries.)

Our final stop was the i-Site. We’d only gone in to find out about whether there’s a bus to Nelson and were surprised to find ourselves in a small nature museum. It seems the owner of this particular branch is also a taxidermist and has created this whole natural-history extravaganza representing the local wildlife. It’s something you have to see to believe; so we’ve put in some photos below. It’s well-worth visiting this i-Site just to see the displays!

For dinner we went to the local pub, the restaurant located at the Havelock Hotel that we wouldn’t even have known was there until someone recommended it. I guess anyone who’s local will know of it, and they don’t care to go after the tourist business. It’s like a secret pub, a low-key homey place where you can get a meal and a drink and, if you care to, watch whatever’s on one of the TVs. We had a pretty good Hawaiian pizza, and I had forgotten how addicting “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” can be. –Cyndi

April 11, 2016

Going into Havelock is a little bit tricky. It necessitates going down the Mahau Sound, which is subject to some pretty big tides. Deep-draft boats like ours need to carefully follow a marked route and arrive in the shallowest sections near high tide. It’s not that difficult, but it’s intimidating enough that many boaters won’t attempt to go there.

Below a map of the area around the Mahau Sound.  Click in the markers to see what’s what.

 

This sunny morning motoring down the Kenepuru Sound, we were impressed with how mountainous it was (parts of it were obscured by cloud cover when we arrived).

After a brief time in the Popoure Reach, we arrived at Mahau Sound, the innermost of all the sounds. With it’s changes in tide (resulting in muddy areas) and drier vegetation, Mahau Sound may be the least attractive sound. That said, it’s still quite lovely and is interesting to see.

We followed the marked route on a rising tide and at the shallowest point, we cleared the bottom by at least 3 feet. While we proceeded with care over the shallowest areas, we weren’t nervous until we came to the surprise blind corner near Havelock. The channel is narrow, shallow and hugs a headland as it rounds a corner. There’s no place to go if a boat suddenly appears going the other way! I don’t know how they avoid head-on collisions. Thankfully that part was over quickly, and now we were in view of Havelock Marina.

We motored to our reserved slip, got tied up and looked around. After visiting by car we didn’t think we wanted to bring our boat here. But now we both felt the same way: It felt great to be here! Somehow it seemed much more appealing than we remembered, maybe because we were seeing it from inside the marina, or from the viewpoint of staying here as opposed to a lunch stop on a long drive. Or maybe it was the beautiful day and getting out of the wind that had been picking up all morning.

We checked in with the office, then headed to a restaurant by the marina called the Slip Inn. We celebrated our arrival with those local green-lipped mussels we love (Havelock is the green-lipped mussel capital of New Zealand) and some fish and chips. For a few days, we could look forward to no weather worries, clean laundry, food re-provisioning, and trying local eateries. The old saying goes that the two happiest days in a boater’s life are the day they buy their boat and the day they sell it. My version is it’s the day you get away from a marina to “get out there,” and the day you come into a marina after “getting out there.” –Cyndi