Paradiso Backpackers Nelson

We travelled straight from Picton (where the ferry port is) to our next port of call- Nelson. The first night we stayed in a holiday park and the second night we opted for the Paradiso hostel as we needed a bit of comfort as the weatherr was getting bad. We went out on the tiles in Nelson and had another good drunken night out, however we`ve never met so may weirdos in one night...malcolm and ginge to name but a few!!

Did the 3-hr ferry crossing today from the North to the South Island. We had a great time in the North Island, but we've heard the South is even better, so we're pretty excited. There's lots of activities to do in the South, so the blog should be a little more interesting again. We got to Nelson and our hostel is very nice......outdoor pool, sauna and spa (we're really roughing it, can't you tell?!) After a swim we decided to see what the nightlife of Nelson was like, armed with some vouchers...

I wandered the side streets of Havelock for my morning walk and stumbled upon the Havelock Cemetery. A brief investigation showed that no one had been buried here since 1996. Many of the old tombstones had tipped over, likely the end result of some juvenile prank, yet the lawn was freshly mowed around said toppled stones. An odd mix of overall apathy and diligent landscaping maintenance all mixed in. In case you are wondering why I'm writing about a graveyard, its because that's about as exci...

We stayed in Nelson for 3, long, wet, and antarctic days.

* The hostel had icicles hanging from it. I was continually cold. And raining. It makes me cold now, just thinking about it.

* Abel Tasman NP is really outstanding (can you tell that I'm already running out of descriptive words for the scenery?!). We kayaked for half a day, which was most definitely a good amount of time. My back was bruised. Plus, I had to steer with Je frantically trying to direct from the front: diffi...

NELSON IS SIIICK. It's a little bohemian town and the one of the best places I've been to yet. Met some locals and cruised around with them to Abel Tasman National Park, and it was incredible. Went for a couple massive treks through the area, which is rugged coastal rainforest with pristine white sandy beaches and enormous limestone cliffs. The hostel we stayed at was amazing. It had a pool, hot tub, sauna, free soup and breakfast, and was like a resort, for a grand total of about 17 USD per ...

So, we left Hastings, with not a hint of regret. The town was dead, me and Brace basically wasted a week there and we're not even vaguely sad to go. Bradda is still there, trying to earn a bit of cash picking fruit, we're meeting him again in Queenstown for Xmas. Had a standard flight from Hastings to Nelson, via wellington, nothing of any note except the plane was a turbo prop. But other than that. Arrived in Nelson over the Malbrough Sounds, a group of hill and peaks sticking out into the s...

Saturday 5th July We left Kaikoura early Saturday morning after helping ourselves to plenty of free breakfast. We got back onto the Magic bus and headed for Nelson stopping off in Picton to pick up backpackers who had ferried across from the North Island. The journey to Nelson took 4 hours and once we had arrived we checked into the backpackers and helped ourselves to yet another free meal of vegetable soup, NZ is great for free meals when you're a backpacker :). After food 12 of us headed to...

This morning we left the North Island with the Interislander Ferry to get to Picton on the South Island. It takes about 3 hours to get there but it is a wonderful sight almost all the way long (and this time the weather was great!). There were a lot of wonderful fiords around (or at least it looked like being something like this). The ferry had a huge sun deck and also restaurants and bars on the other decks. Picton itself is very small and the only thing that we really looked for there was t...

I arrived in Nelson yesterday after a beautiful ferry ride from Wellington to Picton. I had to tramp around the city for about an hour to find a hostel, but finally found one... well, it found me! I was on a corner reading a map and the caretaker from this new hostel stopped and asked if I needed a place to stay! It was nice, however it was a shared dorm and one of the guys snored like crazy! So I got up around 7am and took a bus ride to Abel Tasman National Park and did a 4 hour hike, amazin...

Had a semi decent nights sleep. It rained in the night and boy did it sound on the tin roof of the hut. I headed north to Westport where I turned inland again leaving the Tasman Sea behind. I also exchanged the rain forest for mountain bush. Found Paradiso Backpackers, my home for the next few days. Booked in and then found out that this is the party backpackers of Nelson. My booked double room had in fact four beds and the en suite was compact to say the least. All I'll say is that you could...