Sunshine Capital - just not today

Back over Cook Strait by the ferry to meet the bus doing the south island circuit. We drive through winding mountains for an hour or two and head into one of the larger north island towns of Nelson. Although this is the sunshine capital of NZ, there’s a whole bunch of bad weather all over NZ on its way, and so we don’t get to see much of this town other than during our arrival there.

First night in here, most of us check into Paradiso – a well run place that has the right layout for a comfortable stay. Along with free soup, noodles and breakfast it wasn’t difficult to see how this place has a reputation for being awarded “best backpacker”.

Many of us have organised to go and visit the Abel Tasman National Park. Most of us go north via a boat cruise and spend the day walking through the forest which runs down the coast. We’re quite lucky with the weather. Although not great light for Kodak moments, it was mostly sunny and quite ideal conditions for the 20km walk. Those who did the kayaking had perfectly still wind conditions making paddling easy.

The local YHA also gets a good report and so I also stay a few nights here. Although everything is top quality it has a sterile feel to it that makes you feel like you’re visiting a hospital. Not that that matters a great deal as backpackers aren’t intended to hang out at, and I book myself onto the local wine tour seeing as the weather isn’t looking good enough to get a parasail in. Initially the wine tour is booked out by a 16 member group booking from Denmark that happens to be staying at the same hostel. Fortunately one aborts, so I’m in at the last moment. Marion, our expert wine connoisseur takes us out and gives us more than a tour of the local boutique wineries. She’s got several of them with an assortment of foods to suit each and every wine tasting, demonstrating the effects of very specific foods when drinking different wines. While I’ve seen this effect on a broad scale, we all got a real education on this effect.

Back on the bus again to head over to Greymouth for a stopover before heading on over to the glacier area. We travel West South West via Murchison, Punakaiki and the Buller Gorge. I’ve seen some amazing scenery while travelling on this bus, but this has topped the lot. I later read in the magic bible that this winding road that skirts endlessly around sheer drops into gorges often with sections of road that have slipped down to the river below is also listed in Lonely Planets “Top ten drives in the world”.

We drop one off at Te Nikau Retreat. It seems this is the place to stay and if I wander back through this area again a tramp through this country side, this would be a must do.