Blogs from Abel Tasman National Park, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 6

We left Nelson with beautiful blue skies and warmth at 9 in the morning. We took the long way around to stop at Lake Rotitaro which is at St Arnaud. On either side of the road were huge bushes of yellow flowering gorse which against the pine trees and cloudless blue skies made a stunning picture. On arriving at the lake we were met by the local ducks all hungry for their breakfast or elevenses as we were. There were a few camper vans parked nearby but apart from that the lake was empty and the snow covered mountain at the back made for an amazing picture. After stopping at the Alpine Lodge for coffee we continued on to Blenmeim. The road followed the river and we could have stopped too many times to take pictures. ... read more

We droveoff the ferry at Picton after a lovely crossing. The ferry sailed through Cook Strait which made for great views as the sun was going down. It was dark by the time we got to Picton so we found our holiday park and checked in before cooking dinner and chilling out before bed. We were planning on driving to Nelson the following day. Next morning, we set off on our drive to nelson which is a great little town. Our campsite was 4km outside Nelson in the valley, and only cost us $6 each for the night. Cheap as! It was still bright when we arrived it was still bright so we went for a walk in the valley and hiked up one of the hills. It was pretty cold but the views were nice. ... read more

Our next stop along the road was on the North West coast of the south island at the Abel Tasman National Park. Nearly everyone we chatted to recommended visiting here. It is a coastal park with dramatic mountains meeting the sea. Similar to so many other places in NZ you can do a 3-4 day trek here spanning 50kms or so along various bays, staying in little huts. Some parts of the walk are tidal crossings so rather than walking sea kayaking has become popular too. So when we arrived we really didn’t know what we wanted to do. After the Tongariro crossing, John had mentioned he didn’t want to do another big walk for a while but somehow we did it again and signed up for a water taxi to drop us about 21kms out ... read more

Geo: -41.006, 173.01As our mission to find a reasonably priced item or activity in New Zealand continued, we left the Rotorua area and headed south with brief stops in Taupo (the Skydiving Capital of New Zealand), Taihape (the Gumboot Capital of New Zealand- really… the best symbol this town could identify with was a rubber boot?), Bulls (the Bull Capital of New Zealand- this town was very enthusiastic about using ‘Bull' as a descriptor, and, no bull, their sister city is Cowes in England), and Wellington (the actual capital of New Zealand), where we caught the ferry to the South Island. As we finished up our journey through the North Island, not only were we unsuccessful in experiencing a low cost, high value transaction, the bar actually went to a new low at the Taihape Riverview ... read more

We drove along the northern coast of the south island to get to Abel Tasman National Park. We had some time to kill when we got there, so we decided to go...SKYDIVING! Well, it wasn't a totally spur-of-the-moment decision, we had planned on doing it somewhere in New Zealand. This seemed like the perfect place, with mountains, Carribean-blue coasts, and a overal great views of both the south and even the north islands. It was an awesome experience. The views from the plane were great, and we went up to 16,500 feet. Briana jumped out first- "ladies first", Brian said. The guides were great at making you look at all the cool things and Briana's even let her "steer" the parachute for part of the way. We have photos and a DVD we'll share when we ... read more