Thunder, Lightening and a 3 hour ferry crossing...
Trip Start
Jul 24, 2007
1
29
50
Trip End
Nov 11, 2007
Nelson,
New Zealand
Monday, October 8, 2007
We got the ferry over to the south island today - winds were still howling and I thought it might be a pretty rough crossing - the ferries are huge though like the ferries that go across the channel crossing! - It takes 3 hours to go between the two islands. The first 45 mins was pretty calm as the boat was sheltered by the islands then we had about 1hr 15 mins of pretty rough seas across the cook strait with quite a few green looking faces and plenty of sick bags being handed out! The last part of the boat journey is through the Marlborough sounds which are absolutely beautiful and calm!
You can instantly see the difference between the two islands as soon as you arrive in Picton - the hills turn to the size of mountains and the scenery is much more dramatic but still very green. The main difference is the Marlborough Region is quite famous for wine growing so instead of loads and loads of sheep and cows there are loads and loads of fields of vines.
Wellington from the ferry
It has been quite nice being here in spring even though the weather had been quite up and down because its not too busy and there are baby animals everywhere, watching lambs playing in fields full of daffodils is actually really lovely - its weird because for the last five years I've been driving past fields full of lambs and calves on the way to work and never paid attention to it but now I wanna take pictures of every lamb that I see!!We stopped at a place which sells local wines for a wine tasting session. We tried a couple of white wines they both smelt much better than they tasted if you ask me and I wasn't persuaded by the special offer price for Kiwi Experience to buy any of it. They did have some great olive oils though with different flavorings which you could try - some of them were amazing and it'd be great if they have them in the UK but chances are they don't - New Zealand seems to be great at importing but not so great at exporting - well apart from the lamb that is - haven't eaten lamb since I've been here even though its ridiculously cheap, I prefer to think of them with the daffodils!
Staying in a place called Nelson tonight which is in the north west of the south island. Its the gate way town to the Abel Tasman National Park. As soon as I hear national park I automatically think of hills and rocks and things like back home but the Abel Tasman is actually a coastal National Park so has a huge number of beaches and bays and you can do hikes into the park for a day or a few days which would have been nice (especially as its flat!). I would have liked to have stayed here for a while if I had longer, although I'm really enjoying this trip and have met some really groovy people it does feel like its a bit of a whirl wind experience of New Zealand and there are so many places where I have wished that I could have stayed longer. Nelson is a quaint little town surrounded by hills of one side and a massive port on the other, its really pretty and has the best weather in all of New Zealand - great place to live I reckon!
