Before arriving in the Abel Tasman region, we had quickly passed through Napier and Wellington (snatching a couple of nights of free camping in city centre car parks) in order to get the inter-island ferry to the country's southern island and the port of Picton. The blog for Wellington will follow after we've returned there for the All Blacks game.

Despite the early morning start from Wellington, necessary for us to check in an hour before our departure time of 9am, the three hour journey across the channel was fairly comfortable and Rosa predictably took advantage of this by curling up on a nearby sofa for the resumption of the previous night's sleep.

Being the start of winter here down under, 'sun drenched Marlborough', as the guide book had put it, was anything but as we drove off the ferry towards Nelson and Abel Tasman, but we still found time to enjoy its fruits in one of the many vineyards offering wine tasting in the Marlborough region before finding a campsite for the night.

We then headed up towards the heart of the park in Marahau the follwing day, taking a taxi boat with two other couples to the famous Anchorage Bay and walking back along the fantastic coastal track to where we had started. As you can see in the photos, the area is one of the most beautiful areas in the country, although we seem to find ourselves saying this more and more with every day we spend driving around the southern island.

Luckily, the days around the park were fantastically sunny for us, although this made the ensuing nights extremely cold; Rosa said she would wake up in the middle of the night while we slept in the camper and our second duvet would be absolutely soaked with condensation!

Having the camper is absolutely amazing for the freedom and stunning views we see every day, but we also find ourselves looking forward to the evenings when we can settle down and watch our DVDs on the portable player with the heater on (or not if we find ourselves parked on a side street somewhere).

Kev