The road from the West Coast via St Arnaud to Picton is basically through steep wooded valleys. These look more like commercial forestry in the main, rather than the variety of trees and plants in the birch woodlands further south, or the rainforests on the coast. It felt much like areas in Scotland and Scandinavia we’ve passed through.
Nelson was the largest place we visited on the South Island and a bit of a shock after nearly a week of staying in places with populations in the hundreds to somewhere with a population of 55,000. I didn’t feel great so probably did not explore what Nelson had to offer.
What we did see was Santa’s parade, and it was strange seeing people in shorts and T-shirts waiting to see Santa and his reindeer. The parade was surreal, with a few Christmas-themed floats, floats from local businesses and the Indian, Thai and Chinese communities, and an ice cream truck decorated with tinsel in the parade and serving outside Santa’s grotto!
Nelson’s Christmas tree, with the cathedral tower in the background. The Christmas tree really does not look out of place with blue skies and palm trees and leaves on all the trees.
Nelson is a good a base for a trip to Abel Tasman National Park.
We took the extended tour with Wilson’s. We sailed the full length of the coast from Kaiteriteri to Tōtaranui, then disembarked for around two hours for a walk at Medlands Bay before returning. The trip was a bit of a trade-off we could have walked for longer, but would not have seen as much of the coastline.
The scenery from the boat was wonderful.
The coast was an unbroken woodland, usually with a couple of metres of rock between the trees and the sea, though there were some glorious golden sandy beaches.
The walk was around 5km along good paths with a couple of swing bridges and a couple of small waterfalls. There were great coastal views.
We saw a lot of Weras including this fur ball!
The next day we headed to Picton. We had a leg stretch at Peloras Bridge, which had several walks centred on the rocks, it was going to be a five-minute stop – we ended up staying around an hour.
Then we took Queen Charlotte Drive to Picton. This is a wonderful scenic road with a fair number of stopping points.
Picton was nice enough, we were only staying there because we had to be there at 6:30am for a ferry (It was late}. There were plenty of bars and eateries.
So we dropped off the car at the port and caught the ferry to Wellington.
We had heard a lot about the ferry crossing from Picton to Wellington. Much of the journey is through the Marlborough Sounds with steep, tree-covered sides and only occasional buildings.
After 13 days in the South Island it was time to cross the Cook Straight to the North Island.
The South Island is wonderful.
We are lucky to have been able to visit twice, and been able visit so much of island. We have not done the long treks into the wilderness, but have seen a little more than the main tourist sites.
We have been able to visit seven of the nine national parks, Fjordland in 2018, then Mount Aspiring, Aoraki/Mount Cook, Arthurs Pass, Paparoa, Nelson Lakes, and Abel Tasman in 2018. Despite our best efforts the weather kept us from Westland twice.
The weather has affected the holidays on both visits, but shit happens. We have missed some place we wanted to see, but discovered new places which had not been on our radar.
For the most part we booked motels, these were consistenly good. This helped keep costs down. We made our own breakfast everyday, and made a lunch most days which was usually a salad, rice salad or pasta.
We also made sure we booked accomodation with washing machines, I think we took around about 10 days clothes and we were away for 25 days, The packing was complicated as we were visiting such a variety of places in Spring.
It is a place where some of the experiences may be expensive, the jet boat expeditions or the helicopter flight, but the memories are priceless.
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