We knew we wouldn’t be able to see all we wanted to on the South Island in ten days, so we planned another one week trip to see the north of the south island. We took the Interislander Ferry across the Cook Strait and through the Marlborough Sounds to Picton last Tuesday. We rented a car and decided to take the secondary route to see the beautiful scenery, but because these damn NZ roads are SO windy, I got a little car sick and wasn’t able to enjoy too much of the scenery. We still haven’t been able to achieve the 100km/hr speed limit here and can’t understand how anyone could even come close to it!
We drove to Nelson for our first night of camping. Nelson is a beautiful little city and is the sunniest place in NZ. We were really looking forward to the sunny weather because we haven’t been as lucky on the North Island. So after fighting with the tent for 45 minutes and almost filing for divorce, we realized we needed to go by some tent pegs. Not sure how it is supposed to be put up without pegs, but apparently is has been done. After this minor hiccup, we went in town to meet up with some Albertan friends! We had drinks on an outdoor patio and caught up on life in NZ. We knew Ryan from Ontario and Edmonton and met his fiancée, Ashley who is also now living in Sherwood Park. It’s always so nice to see a familiar face!
The next day we drove to Motueka which is close to the entrance of the Abel Tasman National Park. We stayed at the Top 10 Holiday Park (a really clean and nice chain of campgrounds all over NZ) for two nights and booked our next two days in the park. The Abel Tasman is a National Park filled with beautiful golden sand beaches, clear aqua green water and really dense rainforest. It is 52km long and usually takes 3-5 days to complete by hiking and/or kayaking. We chose to take an Aqua Taxi to our drop off point and to hike back to the entrance. It was about an hour’s boat ride to get to our starting point which took us by various beaches and around some small islands. We hiked 24km through native NZ rainforest and tons of beautiful beaches. Unfortunately it was raining on and off so we didn’t get to fully enjoy the beaches and the clear aqua green water. The water is perfectly clear when the sun is shining, but I was a little bit scared to take the plunge in the dark water…especially because there are seals, penguins, dolphins and a local shark spotted there last week. The hike wasn’t as difficult as the Tongariro which we did last week, but was definitely getting tougher coming on the end when all we wanted to do was sit down! We hit up the hot tub at the campground that night to relax!
The next day, we had rented kayaks for the day to do part of it by water. We got all the gear and suited up to head out to one of the small islands to see the fur seals and penguins. It was once again, cloudy and rainy so it was pretty scary out in the open water with Aqua Taxis flying by us, but we did make it to the island and stopped to pee. Ha. We unfortunately, didn’t see any seals but we did catch a couple of penguins which are really cute. We stopped on a small secluded beach for lunch before hopping back in the kayak and making our way back before low tide hit. We did beach it at one point, but it was a great day on the water. The Abel Tasman National Park is definitely a beautiful spot to spend a couple of days and we are very glad that we made the extra trip over to the South Island to see it! That night, Ashley and Ryan joined us at the campground for some drinks and fun. Of course, we are now planning on hopefully meeting up with them in Asia at some point too!
We left the National Park and headed back to Picton (where the ferry comes in) to meet some of our Wellington friends to head to Blenheim for the Marlborough Wine and Food Fest. We took a bus to Blenheim (29km away) and joined in on the fun with 8000 other wine drinkers. It was a great day with lots of great wine and food and of course, amazing entertainment. Liam Finn, who reminded us a lot of Sam Roberts performed for an hour and a half. We both loved him! After he finished, Gin Wigmore who is a young Kiwi girl performed. She is becoming really big in NZ and has just signed a record deal in the US so hopefully she’ll break into the North American market soon and you’ll all know what I’m talking about when I say that she sounds so much like Janis Joplin! She has been one of my favorites since arriving in NZ so I was pretty stoked when we got to see her live! We are going to buy both of their albums and send them home with Clement’s parents. I would advise you all to check them both out!
Clement’s parents are travelling on their own for a couple of weeks as well, and arrive back in Wellington on Thursday for a few days before leaving on the 23rd. We also leave on the 23rd to head back to the South Island and finish up our NZ travels, before leaving for Melbourne, Australia on March 5th! In the meantime, we are going to soak up our last 6 days in Wellington and say bye to all of our amazing Kiwi friends. It’s been a blast here in this quirky city and we will never forget the friends we have made and our time spent in Wellington!
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