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Home » Destinations » New Zealand » Picton to Nelson with Queen Charlotte
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Picton to Nelson with Queen Charlotte

Published: 12th June 2011 by Laurence Norah - 8 Comments

More on that ferry crossing, including some photos of our mill pond like crossing, can be found as part of a guest blog I did for Denise over at NZ Escapes, which can be found here.

Once off the ferry however, the amazement does not end. From Picton there is a choice (much like in those old text based adventure games) where one can GO SOUTH or one can GO WEST. We opted to go West, following in the footsteps of the Pet Shop Boys, and explore the winding and scenic route that is the Queen Charlottle Drive.

This area is, we quickly learnt, full of Sounds – the New Zealand equivalent of a fjord, or basically, a sea inlet. Mountains rise up out of these in swooping fashion, and I have to admit to feeling rather lucky that the weather was being so kind to us, what with clear blue skies nuzzling the sea mist out of the valleys.

Clouds over hills

As well as the Queen Charlotte Drive, we took the opportunity to drive up Kenepuru road, a road which runs parallel to the Queen Charlotte Track – one of New Zealands epic great walks. As with the others, this is a multi day hike which involves carrying all your gear. Since Bernie does such a great job of carrying all our gear as it is, we decided that the road version was probably going to be scenic enough.

Boat and jetty reflection

And, obviously, it was. I lost count after about the tenth lookout as to quite how many times we stopped to take photos, but hopefully those featured here will give you an idea of the kind of epic scenery we were lucky enough to encounter.

We spent one of our two nights camping at a DOC site along the way – these are generally the cheap options which consist of a scenic location, a stunning view, and a pit toilet. Well, you can’t have it all. And at the price, you can’t really complain. Our second night was at the Cable Bay holiday park, home to New Zealand’s first undersea cable terminus which linked 19th century New Zealand to Australia, and also a rather splendid place to catch a sunset.

Sunset at Cable Beach

At the end of the drive we wound our way into Nelson, a sunny town on the beach, home of a fairly impressive church, and also the first place in New Zealand to have ever hosted a rugby game.

Nelson church in AutumnWe spent an afternoon wandering the town, found a coffee shop where they roasted the coffee beans in front of us, and then camped out for the evening in a campsite with one of the best views from a campsite thus far, where I captured the below time lapse photo of the stars wheeling over Nelson (see if you can spot the planes).

Stars wheeling over Nelson

From Nelson it is on up the coast to the golden beaches and native bush of the Abel Tasman National Park, which will be the subject of my next post.

Sunrise beach pebbles

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There are 8 comments on this post

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  1. Laurence says

    15th June 2011 at 2:13 am

    It sure is!

    Reply
  2. Crazysexyfuntraveler says

    14th June 2011 at 7:23 pm

    Yeeeeah, nice place!

    Reply
    • Laurence says

      15th June 2011 at 2:13 am

      It sure is!

      Reply
  3. Alexandra Kovacova says

    14th June 2011 at 7:23 pm

    Yeeeeah, nice place!

    Reply
  4. Laurence says

    14th June 2011 at 4:32 am

    I have to agree Erica, I have a similar feeling. I particularly enjoy the
    emerging from the cloud moment, and I can also confirm that I have many many
    more photos of cloud filled fjords as a testament to my love of this sort of
    view!

    Reply
  5. Erica Kuschel says

    13th June 2011 at 7:17 pm

    I am in love with pictures that have the clouds hanging between mountains. Even though I have seen it my fair share of times, I can’t get over how surreal they look.

    Reply
  6. Erica&Shaun Kuschel says

    13th June 2011 at 7:17 pm

    I am in love with pictures that have the clouds hanging between mountains. Even though I have seen it my fair share of times, I can’t get over how surreal they look.

    Reply
    • Laurence says

      14th June 2011 at 4:32 am

      I have to agree Erica, I have a similar feeling. I particularly enjoy the
      emerging from the cloud moment, and I can also confirm that I have many many
      more photos of cloud filled fjords as a testament to my love of this sort of
      view!

      Reply

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