Wellington to Picton to Nelson to Motueka (South Island)

Got up early to be on the ferry to the South Island. In line at the dock by 7:00 am for the sailing at 8:25. Nice ferry although a little bigger than and not as nice as the ones that go from Vancouver to Victoria. They do have a two-story play space for the kids and a cinema.

The trip takes about 3 hours with only about an hour on the open sea and the rest navigating the costal passages. Interesting enough the trip is an east/west one and not a north/south since the north end of the south island is level with the south end of the north island.

Landed in Picton after passing through Queen Charlotte Sound (named after our daughter we think) which is a very pretty collection of islands, remote farms, fish farms and steep green hills. Took the scenic way out of town, which was yet another twisting, turning, narrow road perched above the ocean. Could be worse.

The next stop was in Nelson, which was a bustling town with lots on people in the downtown core. You have to hand it to New Zealand. All of their downtowns are full of small individual shops and they have a lot of life. There are hat shops, men’s shops, shop stores, and all sorts of things that the mega stores killed on main street Canada years ago. I must say that the choices and the prices might not be as good but it is nice to have everything local.

After Nelson, we took the costal highway to Motueka since it was fairly close to the entrance of Abel Tasman National Park. The hostel was nice. Our building was almost empty and had mostly “older” people in it.

We got up early the next day to drive the winding roads into the park and catch the water taxi to our starting point. The Abel Tasman coastal walk is one of New Zealand’s best and while we didn’t want to do the entire 3-4 day walk we thought 3-4 hours of it was better than nothing.

The water taxi was rather different. Since the tides are so high/low they actually put you in the boat while in the parking lot. A tractor then pulls you down the road to the water and out about 100 ft until there is enough water to float the boat. See the picture at right. That is a tractor leading the boat.

We were dropped at Anchorage Bay, where we had to wade ashore, and started on the trek. It was a very beautiful trek, mostly up above the water, on a narrow but level path. It twisted and turned with the hills so some times you were in tropical vegetation and other times most in coastal scrub. Lots of people on the path. Some had full camping gear and other just flip-flops and a t-shirt. There really aren’t many ways to get off it unless you come in by boat, we were amazed at the clothes, and footwear people thought were appropriate. Finished the 12km about the right time and headed back to the same hostel for a special steak dinner celebrating the 23rd anniversary of Lana and me meeting at Ayers Rock in Australia. Then we sat up and drank with a whole bunch of Germans. My head hurt the next morning.