New Zealand - South Island - Nelson

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The Cook Strait crossing took 3 hours and we passed through the Queen Charlotte Sound where I saw seals from standing out on the upper deck. At midday, we departed Picton and headed through Marlborough Valley with its lines of vines and steep hillsides. We stopped for lunch and wine tasting at 'The Village' before continuing on to Nelson where we checked into Fern Lodge. This 4 1/2 star accommodation was hotel like and we had the luxury of an en-suite twin room. We chilled out for the rest of the afternoon before going downstairs to the bar/restaurant for a delicious roast beef dinner with all the trimmings (including Yorkshire pudding). After a scrumptious dessert of rice pudding with cream, red sauce and sultanas, we spent the rest of the night in our room reading and listening to music. We woke up at 9.30am on Wednesday after a 12 hour sleep and caught up on our laundry. The afternoon was spent walking around town, grocery shopping and on the internet. After another roast beef dinner at the hotel, we chilled out in our room and had an early night. We woke up at 6.30am on Thursday and took a 90 minute bus ride to the Abel Tasman National Park. A water taxi took us to Bark Bay and from here we followed the trail to Anchorage. After having lunch on the Bay of Anchorage, we followed a trail that took us to a lookout point and another bay before looping back to Anchorage to catch our water taxi at 3.45pm. We eventually got back to Nelson at 7pm and we had dinner in the kitchen before chilling in our room for the evening. We woke up at 9am on Friday and spent the morning walking to the ‘Centre of NZ’ and along the top of the hills. After lunch at the hotel, I spent all afternoon on the internet before returning to the hotel for dinner at 7pm. Another evening was spent in the room listening to music and reading. On Saturday, we woke up at 7.30am and caught our bus to Westport.

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