Mussel Country

Leaving off from Picton, ferries, and nausia, now, and heading towards our WWOOF engagement in Wakefield, just outside of Nelson. The drive was very pretty indeed, taking us along gentle mountains and a coastline more rugged than those in Hawke's Bay. We stopped in Havelock and as neither of us had really eaten since 10:00 that morning (it was now around 6:00 pm - the ferry was over two hours late getting into dock due to the weather conditions) and still had a good hour long drive ahead of us, we stopped for some food.

Havelock is a very small place and mostly caters to a summer tourist crowd in search of prime seafood and giant green mussels. Indeed, every year it hosts a mussel festival. Small towns focussed entirely on mussles become veritable ghost towns after five in the afternoon, and our quest for food was looking rather futile as there was nary an open food store or cafe in sight. There was, happily, a small restauraunt open called The Mussel Pot. It serves mussels and is decorated with mussel shell art. There was little on the menu other than very expensive mussels, and we decided that we'd go for the cheapest thing available - a $10 bowl of chowder each and a $4 basket of plain bread (non-refillable).

The bowl of chowder was very big and the soup itself was absolutly delicious; it is worth trying, but I honestly just can't reconcile myself to the prices there. There was a nice big green mussel served as garnish, and the beastie inside the shell was so large that the internal organs were clearly identifiable. I've never stared at the mussel equivalent of a liver before, and I hope I never do again. Determined to keep an open mind about the mussel - the soup was, after all, very good and I've eaten this mussel's smaller cousins before - I yanked the creature from it's home, popped it in my mouth, chewed a couple of times, and swallowed before I could taste more of it. Glen thought it was delicious. I thought it was disgusting.

The remainder of our voyage to our WWOOF hosts was uneventful and mostly occurred in the dark, so I won't bore you with details. But there is a side note about The Mussel Pot. We had sent in a job application to them as they were in need of staff during the busy mussel festival and summer months of January to March. The restauraunt manager was there when we visited and we chatted briefly with her. A couple of days later, we recieved a response that they would like to hire the two of us for those months. After a great deal of investigation as to our accomodation options in the area, we declined their kind offer. We didn't want to be stuck in a hostel for over two months in one go, and any other feasable option was far too expensive to make working there worth our while. So we remain free, unemployed agents (aside from our WWOOF endeavours), and shall continue to look for jobettes that suit our requirements.