We arrived on the South Island of New Zealand after a three hour ferry ride through Queen Charlotte Sound in the Marlborough Sounds, which are valleys carved out by the sea to leave spectacular scenery of tree-covered islets as far as you can see. It was ice-cold though, which according to reliable sources we should have more of now we are on the South Island.

First stop was Picton, a small town where the ferry pulls into but not much else, so we drove on to Nelson, which was a good two hour drive. Nelson is a big town in New Zealand terms, but looks very much like the rest of them in that it has one high street with pretty much all the same shops as the others. You can tell the size of the town by the fast food on offer, so if you have a full house (KFC, Pizza Hut, Dominoes, Burger King and McDonalds) it must have at least twenty thousand people.

Nelson does have something unique however, which is that it is home to the Jens Hansen shop where the One Ring was created (another Lord of the Rings money-spinner). The ring which was used in the film was actually about 42 rings, as they made them in all different sizes, but in the shop they have one of the prototypes for the Lord of the Rings nerds to try on (no we didn't do it, but we did go in for a peek).

After a few easy days we moved on to Abel Tasman National Park for a hard day's trekking.