Nelson (including Abel Tasman), South Island, New Zealand

24th November – 27th November 2017

After taking a short shuttle ride to the ferry terminal, we had to check our bags in and wait in the waiting area. It was a lot more official than I thought it would be and the ferry was much bigger than I thought it would be: I didn’t really realise the distance between the two islands. After being in the waiting room for about ten minutes, we were able to board the boat and find ourselves a seat.

On the ferry, they had all sorts of facilities, but we just found ourselves a few seats and got comfy for the duration: comfy enough so that we could nap. The ferry ride was over three hours long, and as we were delayed leaving Wellington, it meant that we were late arriving in Picton; the ferry should have arrived at 5.55 and we had a bus booked for 6.15, but the ferry didn’t pull into the docks until around 6.10, so that then delayed the bus, making the journey longer still.

We were lucky to have a friendly bus driver who chatted away to us for the whole journey, as it made it go much quicker. Plus, he had lots of interesting facts about the country, telling us about things that we saw along the way. The biggest thing he talked about between Blenheim (another town before Nelson) and Nelson were the wineries and vineyards. We drove by so many vineyards on the way and it is apparently a good place to go on a wine tour, we just didn’t have the time.

We finally arrived in Nelson at around 9pm and we were dropped off just around the corner from our hostel. Once we had made our way to the hostel, the check in desk was shut, as it was so late, so there was just an envelope with my name on, stuck on the window.

As soon as we had found our room and dumped our bags, we went straight to the kitchen for dinner, as we were both pretty hungry by this point. Luckily dinner was already made, so I just had to cook some rice and reheat the chilli, so it didn’t take too long.

After we had eaten dinner, we chilled out in the lounge area for a little bit, before making our way to bed.

The next morning, we had decided to have an early start, as we wanted to go to the morning market in the square by our hostel. We got up and showered and dressed, before grabbing a quick breakfast and heading out. Before leaving, we had to pop to the reception desk to check in properly, but as soon as that was done, we head to the market.

It was only a short stroll to the markets, which were at the end of the road. We had a wander up and down the stalls which had all sorts of different things, from food to souvenirs, to collectables etc. We didn’t buy anything straight away, as we weren’t planning on going back to the hostel right away and we didn’t want to carry anything around.

Once we had seen all of the stalls, we went for a walk out of the town. Nelson contains the spot of the centre of New Zealand, which of course was on top of a hill, so we had a walk up there. The intial walk to get to the park where the hill was, was okay and the beginning of the hill walk wasn’t too bad, but as we got closer to the top, the hill got steeper and steeper and it felt like we were climbing a vertical hill.

When we made it to the top, we had a rest and cooled down a bit, before taking some photos of the views. It was mainly lovely and peaceful up there, besides the children that were running around in excitement because they had made it to the top, but they weren’t too bad and they left after not very long.

After a short rest, we made our way back down the hill, stopping for breaks along the way. When we reached the town again, we had another look around the market, buying some fresh fruit and veg from the local farmers. I was also sucked up by the waffle stand and we ended up buying a waffle with ice cream, but I did share it with Joe.

We walked back to the hostel after we had been in the markets, as it was almost lunch time. Before we ate lunch, we dropped some things off and had to nip to the supermarket for a couple of bits. For lunch we had nachos with homemade guacamole (mashed avocados).

After lunch, we did some laundry. While the washing was on, we waited in the hostel and did some research for the next part of the trip. We had another walk out again once the washing was done to find out some more information about the rest of the South Island, but as it was Sunday, most places were closed.

We spent the rest of the afternoon back at the hostel, booking different things and organising the next few days.

Once the research was complete, we had dinner, before going to bed to watch a film and get an early night.

The alarm went off at about 6 the next morning, although I was awake from about 5.30 because two other girls were up getting ready; however, I’m not sure why they were up so early because we later found out that they were on the same transfer as us. We had to be up and ready early, as we were being collected just after 7 to head towards Abel Tasman National Park. We got up and dressed and managed to squeeze some breakfast in before we left. Luckily, I had made the lunches the night before after dinner, so they were all ready for us to just pick up and take with us.

At 7.10, the bus arrived at the front of the building to take us to Abel Tasman. The bus that we got, took us as far as Marahau: a little village just south of the national park. As the journey was so early, as soon as Joe sat down, he was practically back to sleep for a good proportion of the journey, so I did the same.

Once we arrived at the office in Marahau, we checked in and were asked to board the boat – very strange as it was still sat on the car park. We got onto the boat and once everyone was on, we were driven to the water, attached to the back of a tractor. When we got to the water, we were reversed into the sea and the tractor drove off.

We got the boat from Marahau to Torrent Bay. The journey lasted about half an hour and we stopped at a few places along the way, including the ‘Split Rock’. According to our driver, Split Rock is the most photographed rock in New Zealand; It is believed that the rock split originally because the Maori God of the sea and the Maori God of the land were fighting over who the rock belonged to and as they were pulling at is, they split it in two and then neither of them wanted it. The water was uncomfortably choppy, which made us feel slightly sick, but we made it there in one piece.

When we arrived at Torrent Bay, we couldn’t get close to the land because of the tide, so we had to take our shoes off and walk through the water to get to the beach. On the beach, I found another rope swing and obviously I had to have a go, even though it took me many attempts to get up there because it was so high!

Once I had finished playing, we put our shoes back on and began our walk through Abel Tasman park, along the coast. The walk wasn’t too much of a challenge at first, luckily, and the views were amazing: the water was so blue, it looked so pretty.

The first part of the walk took us around one and a half hours. We had walked from Torrent Bay to Bark Bay, which was 7.7km away. When we arrived at Bark Bay, we had a rest for lunch. We got the packed lunch out and sat on my sarong, which I had brought as a picnic mat. As we still had so much time until we were being collected (further along the coast), we decided to relax a little and let our food go down. Of course, Joe saw this as an opportunity to have a snooze and he snored his way through our break, for about twenty minutes.

After I had woken Joe up, we continued on our walk to Onetahuti (pronounced on-a-ta-hu-tee). Onetahuti was the bay that we were being collected from, to head back to Marahau, so we knew that we had to be there by 3.30 for the last boat, otherwise we would have a long wait until morning. As it was only 6.1km between Bark Bay and Onetahuti, we weren’t worried about the time, as we were already over half way. The walk was much tougher though and it was a lot hillier, but we made it there in one hour and twenty minutes, giving us about an hour to relax before the boat. Joe obviously saw this as another opportunity for a nap, so left me to enjoy the views alone.

When the boat arrived, we boarded it and we were taken back to Marahau, where we had to wait for the bus back to Nelson. At 5, after fifty minutes of waiting, the bus arrived to take us back. As the journey was going to be over an hour, and we had done about three hours of walking all day, Joe fell asleep soon after we got going – shock.

We arrived back in Nelson, at the hostel at around 6.30. We were both quite hungry, so we decided to have dinner straight away. For dinner, we had chilli again, with some left over nachos from lunch the day before.

After dinner, we had to pack up our bags and sort things out as we were leaving early the next morning. Once we were sorted, we had some time to chill out and watch some Netflix, before we went to bed. When we got in bed, as Joe had slept too much in the day, he didn’t want to sleep so spent his time peeking through his top bunk to my bed, keeping me awake.

My alarm went off at 6 again the next day. I got up and ready and had to drag Joe out of bed. We finished packing up and left the room. We grabbed a quick breakfast and walked to the bus stop, ready for our bus to our next stop, Punakaiki at 7.15.

Nelson feels like it was a whistle-stop trip for us. The main purpose for our stop in Nelson was to see Abel Tasman and it did not disappoint. Although the weather was quite cloudy, it was perfect walking weather and the views were still very beautiful. I feel like Abel Tasman is the beginning of the beauty that the west coast of the South Island is going to offer to us.

To travel is to live, Katie x