Day 1 we explored the city. It’s a nicely laid out city centre, but surprisingly quiet for a city, but then the population is only 55,000 compared to 624,000 for Brighton. We climbed up along step hill to find the spot that signifies the central point of New Zealand. The views at the top were beautiful, the featured image in this post is one of them.
Then we stopped at the Founders Heritage park, which is a quirky set up with a collection of old colonial buildings set up as an historic town setting. It was quite nice to walk around, and we got in for a discount being older citizens, so it only cost us about £8.
We then spent the afternoon on the local city beach Tahunanui, which was very pleasant, water was beautiful for swimming.
Day 2 we drove to Rabbit island, about 30 mins from Nelson, which has a great long and nearly deserted sandy beach, and enjoyed another sunny day swimming and sunbathing. Doing it tough in retirement hey.
Day 3 we drove to a place called Kaiteriteri, which is on the edge of the Abel Tasman national park, a famous are of NZ for its coastline and hiking tracks.
We spent the day on Little Kaiteriteri beach which was delightful, and booked a boat for a trip into the park tomorrow which I’m sure will be fun. In the evening we found a gorgeous little park near where we are staying called Isel Park. It is really pretty and does a food market on a Thursday evening so we had our evening meal down there, a very nice burger.
Day 4 we drove back to Kaiteriteri and found our boat, a 45 minute trip to Torrent bay, lovely peaceful spot. Tide was up so we sunbathed for an hour, had a swim and then went for a hike around the coastal track, which took about hour and a half, back to a beach called Anchorage bay. If it had been low tide we could have got to the same point in 20 mins across the sand, but I’m glad it was high tide because the walk was absolutely stunning, through the forest with birdsong, amazing native trees, and views out to the lagoon and beach beyond. When we got to Anchorage bay the scene was to die for, a stunningly beautiful horseshoe bay, pristine water and we were a bit hot and sweaty so you can guess what we did before tucking into our lunch.
If you go to Nelson you must visit the Abel Tasman national park.
Our final 2 days in Nelson we decided to spend them on the beach at Rabbit Island in glorious sunny warm weather. After all the wonderful scenery we have had the pleasure of seeing over the last 2 and a half weeks, a couple of days kicking back on the sand and in the sea was a perfect way to end our time on the wonderful South Island, before we head to the North Island tomorrow.
