L0p3z and Neno's Upside-Down Adventure: Same country different island

It's been four months since we jumped on a plane and uprooted ourselves somewhere completely different. This time it wasn't too far or too long, just an hour or so to Nelson. Janine's Uncle Mike and his wife Lesley put us up in their home for the night. In the evening Lesley's daughter and her family came for dinner, it was cool to meet them having heard lots about them. Lesley even made Janine a chocolate birthday cake.

Easter Monday was Janine's birthday and we'd planned a trip to Picton along the Queen Charlotte Drive. It's a windy road with some amazing views so it took us longer than planned as we stopped many times for pictures. The road is named after Queen Charlotte Sound one of the Marlborough Sounds which make the whole region so picturesque. When we arrived I needed a coffee fix, luckily there was an old ship converted into a cafe sat on the harbour looking over the boats. Afterwards we took a walk up a hill to get a better view of the sound. We had a look round the shops and made a game of spotting where Carol had been shopping as we could spot various items she'd bought.

Queen Charlotte Sound

Timber yard - Queen Charlotte Sound

Queen Charlotte Sound

Birthday Girl - Picton

After lunch we headed to Blenheim, which is a famous wine region of New Zealand for a tasting. I managed to find a brewery in the area too, although we nearly didn't make it there as my misdirections had us going round in circles. Quite an achievement when there are so few roads! We took another amazing drive back through the mountains from Blenheim to Nelson and headed out for a birthday meal for Janine. It was a little hard to arrange the Thai from the George & Dragon in Wendover so we settled for a giant burger in a pub with a live band.

Birthday in a vineyard

Found a beer in wine country

Decisions

The next morning I treated Janine to a post birthday croissant, romanticly served in a supermarket car park with a spork to spread the butter on. Then we drove up the coast to New Zealand's 2nd best beach, Kaiteriteri, our favourite beach Ohope is number 1. The trip up is a nice drive, we picked up some hitch hikers just outside Kaiteriteri without realising they had loads of luggage. The car must have looked very funny stuffed to the brim with backpackers and their packs.

We chilled on the beach for a while watching the boats taking people on trips to Abel Tasman National Park something both of us have done before. Instead de were heading into unknown territory of the Golden Bay. A quick lunch stop at Marahau was needed before we tackled another windy road up the massive Takaka Hill. The drive is pretty spectacular, certainly one of the best either of us has done on our travels.