So after a horribly early wake up call we headed down to the ferry terminal in Wellington and boarded, luckily it was a gorgeous blue-skied day, so the views from the 3.5 hour ferry crossing were stunning! It was a very rough journey though and I had to take some sea-sickness tablets, it crosses the notorious Cook Straight which is where the Pacific Ocean crashes in to the Tasman Sea. The end of the crossing was the most beautiful part, travelling through the Marlborough Sounds over to the port at Picton.

We then drove pretty much straight over to Nelson, which is known as the sunshine capital of New Zealand. It lived up to it's name, there wasn't a cloud in the sky! When we arrived I took a stroll into town and bought a new hoody as I lost my other new one that I had bought not even a week earlier when I was in Wellington. I then made my way to a jewellers which I heard rumour is where the rings for Lord of the Rings were made (I'm a geek I know, but whatever - I love it, deal with it! haha). It was pretty cool actually, they had different sizes, one of which was probably big enough to fit around my leg just above my knee, which was used for close ups and things, which they took out and let my play with! It was reeeally cool. The guy who designed and made them wasn't there unfortunately, but his son was who showed me lots of different cool things.

I then headed over to a hill on the edge of Nelson and walked up during the sunset to the top of the hill, which is actually the geographical centre of New Zealand. It was really beautiful up there actually, you could see mountains and see with the backdrop of a stunning pinky orange sunset. Gorgeous and totally worth the rather steep walk up there!

When it started to get a bit nippy I decided to head back down to our hostel, where we were given a free beer tasting session! That was good fun, and it was followed by a much craved-for roast beef with yorkshire pudding and the trimmings!

It was only a short stay in Nelson, just one night, but it was worth spending a bit of time there to have a look around!

Until next time (very shortly....)

Joelle
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