NZ: Nelson

Until Sunday afternoon, the only thing I had planned for this week was to check out of my Picton hostel on Monday and to make sure I get to the Christchurch airport on Friday afternoon for my flight to Melbourne. The weather has been rather wet and cool towards Christchurch, so heading that direction early didn’t sound attractive. Since there are good bus connections from the Picton area, I decided to stay nearby and go to Nelson for 3 nights.

Nelson’s main draw for tourists is that it is close to the Abel Tasman Park, where I will be spending 4 days after I return from Australia. Nelson also has a small wine region, a nice beach, kayak and other water activities, and a decent sized town centre with cafes and restaurants. It’s main claim to fame is that it is one of the cities with the most annual sunshine in New Zealand (competing with Gisborne and Blenheim). And that was the reason I decided to base myself here while the rest of the island got rain and clouds.

My main activities were a day long wine tasting tour to 5 wineries and a bone carving workshop where I made my own necklace pendant from cow bone. I also spent a day completely lounging and then going to the cinema in the evening to finally see “Slumdog Millionaire.”

As a wine region, Nelson produces only 3% of New Zealand’s wine across 25 wineries, all family owned and operated. On the tour, we went to Brightwater, Waimea Estate, Stafford Lane, Kahurangi, and Rumi Grove. Brightwater and Stafford Lane had a few excellent wines, and there were a smattering of very good wines at all the others. I wasn’t overly impressed on the whole, although that wouldn’t deter me from buying more wine from the region.

The bone carving workshop was amazing. In a group no larger than 6 people, we have access to tools, materials, and an instructor to design and create our very own bone carving, an art tradition with Maori roots. I have posted just a few photos here on the blog, but I have the full series of start to finish on my smug mug site. See how I got from start to finish in four hours.

Start:

Near finished:

Complete! I am very pleased with the result!

Tomorrow I am on a 6 hour bus trip to Christchurch just in time to catch my 4 hour plane flight to Melbourne. It will be a long travel day, but I am looking forward to seeing Kylie and to explore Melbourne next week!