Nelson and Abel Tasman
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
This morning we flew from Wellington across the Cook Straight to the city of Nelson, located at the top end of the South Island.
After familiarizing ourselves with a very strange rental car, we went to Natureland Wildlife Trust, a small zoo. It has a few non-native tropical animals (several primates, porcupines and meerkats), but mostly its animals are New Zealand native birds. We spent a good deal of time with the active Kea, the only alpine parrot in the world. We had seen them before, but up close, they are really big and impressive. We were surprised when a bird landed on one of us!
Above is a Kea, and below a Kākāriki, a New Zealand Parakeet.
This illustrates how large a Kea is.
After the zoo, we went to the attractive, bustling downtown area of Nelson for lunch. Our dim sum was delivered by a robot. After lunch, we discovered our rental car had a problem. We lost 45 minutes going back to the airport to exchange it for a properly functioning (and better) car.
After completing that errand and checking into our motor lodge, we visited another wildlife sanctuary, similar to Zealandia, called Brook Waimarama Sanctuary. Like Zealandia, this is an area protected by a predator-proof fence. Note, in both of these reserves, you will come across traps for the predators. We took a stroll along a stream, passing several old bridges and dams. Our walk took about an hour. Without a guide, we saw fewer birds than in Zealandia, but we saw several Tui and a handful of other interesting birds. Because of the deep shade of the forest, photography was not easy. Below is the best photo we got of a Tui.
That evening, we visited a brewery located in a converted church before having our fifth consecutive fabulous dinner in the country, this time Asian small plates. Things were about to change on the dining front, but there would still be some highlights to come.
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
After breakfast at a nice bakery in Nelson, we drove west through the town of Motueka and then up and over Tākaka Ridge and down into a valley. Our drive took us past many fruit orchards and some vineyards. Just past the town of Tākaka, we visited Te Waikoropupu Springs. We walked through a dense forest with large tree ferns to the huge, clear fresh water spring. This is the largest freshwater spring in New Zealand and the largest cold water spring in the southern hemisphere. The information boards state that it was some of the clearest water ever measured. Here are two photos.
We then returned to the town of Tākaka (which had a sort of hippie vibe, a small Santa Cruz if you will) for lunch. Afterwards, we drove a bit less than a half hour to Tata Beach to view the golden sands of Golden Bay. The color of the sand beaches, photo below, is quite different from those in California. We could see some of Farewell Spit from the beach but the far end was obscured by some islands.
After this, we took another walk in a forest, in the Grove Scenic Reserve. The main trees here are rātā and there was a beautiful maze of limestone rock formations throughout the park. This walk was the first time we saw palm trees, the only palm native to New Zealand, the Nīkau. We would see these trees along the West Coast later in the trip.
On the left above, a cute mural rendering of a moa bird in Tākaka, and view from the Grove the walk above on the right.
Some palms from the Grove Scenic Reserve, below.
On our walks we saw a new bird species, the brown Weka, a flightless bird slightly smaller than a chicken. Apparently it is nicknamed the Māori hen. We would see them frequently over the next week, and unlike kiwi, which they kind of resemble, they are not afraid of humans. They are actually rather cheeky birds, like Kea.
After the last walk, we headed back east to the town of Kaiteritieri which is one of the main tourist centers for visits to Abel Tasman National Park. By this time, the cloudy day had morphed into bright sunshine, and we were pleasantly surprised by the beautiful color of the ocean water and also of the golden beach sand. The local New Zealanders were swimming in the ocean, which may have been a bit cooler than we could enjoy (22C water temp, similar air temp). But it was beautiful.
This was the first view we got on our drive as the sun came out.
Below is a view of the beach from our apartment.
We spent the rest of the afternoon having ice cream, enjoying the beach views and doing our laundry. Tomorrow we will get out on the water.
February 13, 2025
Today we took a scenic boat cruise that left from in front of our apartment and traveled the length of the coast of Abel Tasman National Park. The trip lasted about three and a half hours. We were lucky to have a bright and sunny day and to grab the last seats on the open top deck of the boat. The water changed from green to turquoise to dark blue as we cruised along. That would be a theme of the trip, the beautiful and varied water colors of ocean, lakes and rivers.
This is another boat from the same company cruising around.
Below are several photos showing the various water colors we encountered.
The boat stopped at several places to let passengers off to take walks in the park (or pick up those returning). Because of a knee injury, we skipped a hike and stayed on the scenic cruise that went all the way to Tōtaranui, located on Awaroa Bay at the northern end of the park. Part of the trip took us through a marine reserve, where we saw New Zealand fur seals sunning on rocks and swimming in the sea. We have seen these seals before, on our prior trip to the country as well as on Kangaroo Island, Australia.
From there, the boat turned around and sailed back to Kaiteriteri, a trip of about an hour and a half.
The photos above show a landing beach, some nice ferns on shore,
Split Apple Rock and the best photo we got of a seal.
Two more photos with nice colors of water. Below that, a boat unloading at Kaiteriteri at low tide. We were able to walk ashore without getting wet.
On landing back at Kaiteriteri, we had a beachside lunch, and then we explored the surrounding area. We walked over a bridge over the nearby creek and along a lagoon and climbed up to the Kaiteriteri lookout. Then we walked down to the lovely golden sands of the Little Kaiteriteri Beach before walking back to the main part of Kaiteriteri . Here are photos: a view of Little Kaiteriteri and looking back at the main beach.
After returning to our apartment, we spent much of the time relaxing on our balcony and looking across the way to the beach with many boats and people.
Here is a map showing the places we will visit during our time on the South Island.
