New Zealand - Day Five

Day 5 - Wednesday 5th May 2010 Time to wake up and enjoy the view........

We stayed off the side of a road at a lookout in Nelson. It took us a while to find but was well worth it! Today we had to get to Collingwood so that we could take the Farewell Spit tour tomorrow morning. Motueka was a lovely little town along the way and we enjoyed wandering through.

The Gothic Restaurant was interesting and I loved the scale of their outdoor table!

I had to include some sheep! This is on the way up Takaka Hill.

WH had been to NZ the year before we got married as his parents lived in Collingwood for six months so he was somewhat familiar with the area. I had been warned that we would be travelling over Takaka Hill, climbing almost 791 metres from sea level and back down again. This was also the first place we had visited so far where the Lord of the Rings Trilogy had been filmed. We took the three movies with us and watched a bit on the laptop each night as we travelled!

Takaka itself is on the other side of the hill and the countryside is beautiful. It was one of my favourite areas that we went through.

The town was so pretty; I loved how all of the shops had hanging baskets full of gorgeous flowers!

After lunch we made our way to PuPu Springs. The water is amazingly clear! It is estimated that 14,000 litres of water are produced per second, approximately enough to fill 40 bathtubs. You are not allowed to touch the water as any contact could contaminate it.

We arrived in Collingwood with enough daylight left to grab an ice cream and have a walk around. Collingwood is a very pretty little town right on the water.

Nelson to Collingwood (133 klms)

Thank you to everyone who has been reading about our travels, it is really lovely to read your comments! xx

New Zealand - Day Four

Day Four – Tuesday 4th May 2010 Last night we researched the next stop that we had in mind, we wanted to get to Collingwood tonight and go on a Farewell Spit Eco Tour but unfortunately there are no tours available until Thursday and that puts us a day behind our proposed schedule and gives us an extra day to get to Collingwood. It’s not the end of the world so we can just take it easy and take two days to get to Collingwood. Picton is the port where the inter island ferry docks it is Marlborough's main commercial port and provides access to Queen Charlotte Sound. We watched the inter islander Ferry as it left in the morning on its’ way to Wellington. The 92km voyage takes 3 hours.

Just around the corner from Picton was this huge logging port. All of us were impressed with the size of it!

We chose to take the scenic Queen Charlotte Drive through the Malborough Sounds and it was a really beautiful trip.

Further along we stopped to “ooooh” and “aaaah” over the clear water at The Grove near Okiwa Bay.

We drove into Havelock and stopped for coffee at a cafe near the harbour.

As we got closer to Nelson we turned off the main road onto Cable Bay Road to stop in at an adventure centre and enquire about their four wheelers. Nicholas really, really wanted to drive a four wheeler however most places there was an age restriction and even though our son is tall he is only ten. No luck for Nicholas but lucky for us we found the ideal spot for lunch!

This was one of those moments when I really appreciated the flexibility of the motor home. Great views and great food and thanks to our wine tasting the day before, great wine! We arrived in Nelson fairly early in the afternoon so we stopped in the city to look around and explore. The church was outstanding and if I remember correctly cost $800 per day to maintain! We were able to go inside and look around as well.

This is where we stopped for the night.

Picton to Nelson (110klms)

xx