Nelson:

After crossing over from the North Island to the South Island on October 24th, we headed west across the top of the South Island. Before continuing our migration south, we decided to stop for a few days to explore the area around the city of Nelson.

Nelson is known for its mountain biking, sunny weather, and from what we had heard was an awesome place to spend some time. On our first day on the South Island, we stopped into Nelson quickly to restock on groceries and gas, before heading towards an area known as the Golden Bay.

The Golden Bay is about an hours drive from Nelson and on the edge of it is a place called Farewell Spit that is the most northern point on the South Island. We spent a couple of nights up in this area exploring, and then headed back down to Nelson for a night, before heading south to Nelson Lakes National Park. Even though there is so much to see in Nelson that we weren’t able to cover, we are hoping to be able to return to this area later on in our New Zealand adventure to explore more of what it has to offer.

Although we spent most of our time exploring all of the cool areas around Nelson, rather than the city itself, we did spend a bit of time in the city and really enjoyed it. It is larger than the typical towns and cities in New Zealand with about 40,000 people. It also doesn’t immediately grab you, from what I had found, and the coastline, surrounding hills and beaches are beautiful but it’s not immediately awe-inspiring. Over time, however, the atmosphere and town begin to grow on you and make you realize that it’s a really cool place to spend some time.

Here are a few of the things that we were able to manage to see during our time in near the city of Nelson:

Wharariki Beach:

Wharariki beach is undisputedly my favourite beach that we’ve visited in New Zealand up to this point. It is quite a long drive to get there and, from Nelson, it took us about 2 hours. But even so, it is definitely worth taking the time to check it out.

The last few kilometres of the road to the beach are gravel and you feel like you’ve reached the middle of nowhere. After you park in the small parking lot at the end of the road, there is a small path that takes you out into a meadow filled with sheep. After crossing over a few rolling green hills with sheep everywhere you look, you eventually reach the start of the sand, and the grassy hills turn into sand dunes.

After cresting the first sand dune, you get your first look down onto the beach. Out in the water is a rock with a weathered hole formed through it making an archway. This is what you see in lots of pictures of Wharariki beach, but there is so much else to see as well.

The beach goes on for quite a long ways in both directions once you reach it so it takes quite a long time to walk the entire length of it. It’s also quite wide and flat so the waves run for a long ways along the sand in a gentle rhythm.

When you first see the beach, it’s beautiful but appears to be quite featureless except for the rock with a hole in it just off of the shore. Once you walk the length of it, however, and turn all of the corners you discover a ton of caves, archways, small pools, a rock with hundreds of birds sitting on it, and other unique rock formations.

And the best part is that even if there are other people at the beach (and you’re an introvert like me), it’s so massive that you can easily walk until there is nobody around you.

So, even though it is a long way to drive to get to Wharariki beach, it is definitely worth it if you are in the area.

Cape Farewell:

A few minutes from Wharariki Beach is the road to Cape Farewell. There isn’t much to see here, but because it is close to Wharariki beach we decided to stop quick. It’s only a few minutes walk from a small parking lot and you get a great lookout over a dramatic section of the coast. The waves pound relentlessly again steep rock cliffs and sea mist carries up the wall and covers your face as you stand looking out at it.

Just like at Wharariki beach, the water and wind have eroded a section of the rock into a small archway.

Farewell Spit:

Farewell Spit eventually ends in the most northern point of the South Island. We walked along part of the spit for a few km’s but turned back as it appeared that you needed special permission to make it much further. It wasn’t fantastic anyways (unless we were missing something or didn’t go far enough), and we enjoyed Wharariki beach and Cape Farewell more.

Hills Walking Track:

We didn’t do this ourselves, but there is a trail called The Hill Walking Track that goes between Farewell Spit and Wharariki Beach (and crosses Cape Farewell in the middle) that looked really awesome. It takes about 4 hours to complete from what we heard and goes along the coast the entire way. From what we saw, there isn’t much of a trail and you follow a staked route the entire way.

Pupu Springs:

There isn’t much to see at Pupu springs, but it is not far off of the main road and is a quick walk to the source of the springs so we decided to stop by quick. There is a small walking track that takes about half an hour and you walk along boardwalks and beside different streams.

All of the water is very clear and in some parts has a light blue hue, which is a contrast to the bright green of the trees that crowd closely around the trail.

The Grove:

Another quick walk that we did in this area is called the Grove. It only takes about 20 minutes to walk the loop, but the trail takes you through a thick jungle-like area where you walk between large limestone pillars and formations that have been covered in roots, vines and moss. The trail eventually takes you to a narrow trail between two large blocks of limestone and to a lookout over the surrounding area.

Although it wasn’t spectacular and is really short, it’s worth checking out and is only a short drive from the main road.

Tata Beach:

The Abel Tasman park is known for its spectacular beaches and amazing coastline, and although we didn’t spend much time in the park, on our drive towards it we passed a lot of beaches that make the area so famous.

One of them was Tata beach, and it was just one of many in the area that is worth checking out. There is so much to see, and we definitely plan to return later in the trip to see more of the Abel Tasman area.

We were also surprised driving through this area to see a roadside sign for a penguin crossing. I’ve seen a lot of wildlife crossing signs, but this was definitely the first for a penguin sign.

Apparently, however, there are blue penguins in the area that cross the road at night time to nest in the limestone cliffs on the other side.

Wainui Falls:

Our only real stop in Abel Tasman park was at Wainui falls. It’s a quick walk to the falls and takes about half an hour or so. You walk through thick bush that feels like a rain forest. The entire walk is along a fairly large river that, when we were there, was a brownish colour that looked like iced tea. It had rained the night before, so it might have only been this colour from the rain.

Just before you reach the falls, you cross a suspension bridge where you can get a view up and down the river. It’s a fun feature of the trail that gives you a different perspective of the river as you cross it.

The waterfall itself was quite large and impressive. We didn’t stay long and it’s hard to get a good photo of it because the mist that sprays from the falls gets funnelled right towards you and covers your face and your camera quickly if you stand too close.

Nelson Lakes National Park:

About an hour south of Nelson is a fairly popular place called Nelson Lakes National Park. Once we had left Nelson, we stopped into this area for a night. While one night isn’t nearly enough to see the area we stopped in at both Rotoiti and Rotoroa Lakes.

The lakes are quite large and as they are glacially formed, they sit in quite deep valleys with steep, tree covered hills surrounding them. There are many campgrounds in this area and lots of hiking and biking tracks as well. You can catch water taxis across the lakes to huts and cabins which give you access to many isolated hiking areas.

 

A few of the things that we had to skip near Nelson were:

Rawhiti Cave:

One of the places that we didn’t see in the area but looked interesting was Rawhiti cave. It is supposed to be a few hours to get to the cave and the trail is apparently muddy after a rain (which it had just rained overnight), so we decided to skip it until we hopefully returned to the area later in the trip.

Abel Tasman Track:

One of the national parks near Nelson is called the Abel Tasman Park. There is a road around the edge of the park and a couple of roads into the park, but the majority of it is accessed either by walking or by water taxi along the coast.

We did a bit of walking and drove a small amount into the park, but we decided to leave exploring the rest of Abel Tasman until later on in our New Zealand adventure.