Activity Summary
Wednesday 4th January - Day 125
Drive to Nelson
Walk around Nelson city
Thursday 5th January - Day 126
Baydreams festival
Summary
Nelson
Nelson is pretty small with what appeared to be decent food & shops so as far as cities go it was decent for a short time. Little to do as expected apart from going outside of the city but it was entertaining to see the masses of young people walking around who were clearly going to Baydreams.
All in all, a quick drive through l was all that was really needed here but given the festival we stayed a few nights.
Accommodation
Nelson - Airbnb
Number of nights - 2
Price per night per person - £30
It was an interesting Airbnb. Our room was more like a fancy shed in the front garden with access to the toilet and kitchen by going into the main house. Certainly not our favourite given it felt like we would wake the whole family moving around late at night. But the hosts were nice, it was very comfortable in our box and it was so close to the festival it was a dream (pun intended). We paid over the odds simply because Luke left it too late to look but it worked out in the end.
Diary
Our departure from the Nelson national park was pretty quick and the drive fairly short so we were in Nelson pretty early on.
We parked up and spent a few hours walking around Nelson. The priority was Nicola sorting out a refund for NZ sim which she has topped up based on the information provided by Vodafone for it all not to work and then being told could get her money back in store. The store subsequently said they can’t issue refunds but would need to call up. This led to her buying a fresh new travel sim (NZ phone operators do not work in the modern age apparently) and then having to argue with Vodafone over the phone a few days later to get them to process a refund for the lies they told her. If you’ve ever been with Virgin broadband and have experienced how they are the actual worst company in the UK, this had all the hallmarks of trying to deal with that shit show of a business over the phone. Somehow Nicola managed to get something moving but we continue to wait with baited breath.
That sort of resolved, we had a short walk around Nelson before realising the hunger pangs so ducked into a burger joint for some guilty expense. Once rejuvenated we carried on around town, doing some classic window shopping at our standard outdoor stores before heading over to the Airbnb.
We parked on the aggressively steep drive, somehow managing to avoid scratching Chopper, met the hosts and then unpacked and settled in for the evening doing absolutely nothing but relaxing in our comfortable box room. Luke left to do a pre-drink booze shop where he again came across his barrier at NZ supermarkets in that he apparently looks closer to 18 than 31 and they will only accept passports. The whole system is a farce seeing as he can drive and own a car in NZ using his UK drivers licence… but he had it with him just in case fortunately.
Early night for us to ensure we can keep up the party tomorrow.
Time to quench Luke’s desperate fix for some drum and bass.
Sadly there was no standard pre festival slap up fried chicken meal for fear of retribution from our hosts so it was a simple predrinking festivity where Luke put on some warm up dnb, him drinking beer and Nicola cider and us barely saying a word to each other as we relaxed in our box and built up the hype (well Luke did anyway). Was actually quite nice.
The weather was absolutely horrendous. Rain was forecast all day, it had been raining all night and with varying degrees of aggressiveness. So we were both wrapped up in waterproofs, packed Nicola a bag of alternatives to keep her warm for fear of being in the rain all day and set off on our merry way.
It was a short walk to the festival and as we got there very shortly after it had started we were through quickly. Security barely checked anything which was very different to the UK.
Luke’s itinerary naturally was just full of dnb artists and fortunately for us they were 80% playing in the indoor pavilion building. Absolutely no worries about being cold and wet all day so we found one of the open storage areas that lined the sides and hid Nicola’s bag behind some folded tables for collection later. Room 2 stealth vibes but cleaner and more secure than the back of the mangey speaker.
The festival was really good fun. The acts were good, the people were incredibly friendly and the whole vibe was good and pleasant. Luke would’ve liked the sound to have been a lot louder but beggars can’t be choosers. It was however ridiculously expensive for a 330ml can so getting drunk was out of the question. They also charge a cost for activating wristbands used to purchase everything which left Luke fuming.
The acts we saw were:
VOE *** very much enjoyed seeing them for the first time
Etherwood
1991
Koven *** solid set
Elderbrook
AMC *** dirty but not Nicola’s kind of thing
Hybrid minds *** actually pulled out a great set much to Luke’s surprise
Diplo
NZ takes alcohol intoxication very seriously however. Luke (usually) holds it together pretty well after excessive drinking but clearly as he’s aged his eyes have started telling a completely diffrerent ‘I’m fucked’ story to the fun police. At the entrance to each drinks vendor is one of these fun police members stopping people they believe are too wrecked. Luke was pulled over a number of times by the same guy after only having about 3 beers which of course made him fume. After protesting the third time and making a case to stare the guy down in the eyes when walking past he stopped getting asked going forward. This shit would never fly in the UK but we did see very little TKO from excess so guess it served its purpose.
Having stopped drinking around 8/9pm and Diplo's set not being all that great we took off early for a much needed mcds, as the food at the festival sucked and was expensive, and were tucked up in bed at a decent time.
Nicola really started showing her age as all the throwing down had flared up her ‘skankers knee’ that would cause her some aching over the next week. It is a real affliction that by our friendship group statistics affect approximately 1 in 4 - aka the weak. There is no known cure for such weakness but effective countermeasures such as the ‘skankers support brace’ have been used to much ridicule.
Comments