End of the South Island....

After kayaking on Abel Tasman we went back to our (free!) campsite site in lovely little Port Motueka where we saw yet another stunning sunset in a stunning location, I was quite pleased with some of the pics I got from that evening,(one of them is in the pics section of the samee name, there are 3 more in Abel tasman kayaking).

From here we drove along to a lovely little town called Nelson where we found a great pub in a converted chapel which served real ale, ticked all the boxes except when we asked about the prices...a slight aside now, although we've moaned to various people we've come across about the appalling exchange rate we've not mentioned it a lot on here if at all, safe to say that's just changed...I was fairly depressed to find we would be paying upwards of £4 per pint of beer, now I do like my beer but I don't like spending hard earned money on over priced beer, (some people might call it tight but I would say I'm economical), anyway, not being one to walk into a good pub without buying at least one beer and having tasted a couple, a half (it killed me!) was decided on and we had a bit of a chat with the barman who was a friendly chap and one of the founders of the pub, seems like a few of the locals were sick of drinking the usual oh so dull NZ lagers and got some cash together and have pulled together some of the local breweries beers (most of them hailing from the fair isle!) and put them on under one roof. I think the barman took pity on us as he saw us nursing our halfs and gave us another free half. The beer was very nice but it was way out of our budget and sadly our session ended very prematurely! Interestingly there seems to be a nascent market for real ale in NZ but none of the regions appear to be aware of what anywhere else is doing so they all think what's going on in there district is the only place it's happening in, CAMRA need a branch in NZ and I'm happy to volunteer for the post of Chairman!!

The following day we drove along Queen Charlotte drive which takes you around the top of the north of the South Island and views of Marlborough Sounds which unsurprisingly for NZ were jaw droppingly beautiful, similar to Fiordland with the hills being much smoother in gradient but the bodies of water identical - as smooth as glass. We stopped for a couple of walks and on one I swear I saw a kiwi, I'm sure it wasn't any other bird that lives on NZ but it shouldn't have been a kiwi as they are nocturnal and it was 10ish in the morning, I didn't get a clear view of him but even so I'm claiming it! Supposedly this area has the best climate in NZ and our time there did nothing to dispel that claim, blue sky with the odd dash of cotton wool here and there as you can see from the pics, while temperatures weren't anything to write home about we couldn't have asked a lot more for the time of year, esp vs home!!

For anyone wondering what a Geodetic landmark is (see the pics section) - these are all over the place and are used to see how much the NZ landscape is moving, both islands have the same fault line running all the way through them!