Nelson & Abel Tasman

After a short walk along the Queen Charlotte Track in the sounds right off the ferry (we will return to this area later), we drove on to the Nelson region. Nelson in NZ's major hop-growing area, and also the center of craft beer. The area also has wine, apple orchards, Abel Tasman park, and sits on the coast will all the related coastal fun of shellfish, kayaks, boats, and whatnot. To cap it all off, it's supposedly one of the sunniest places in NZ. Basically this is an awesome place to be.

Sun we didn't get much of, but we had some great fun in the area. We stayed at Eden's Edge in Riwaka, and quickly extended our stay from 2 nights to 4 to be able to catch some of the greatness that Nelson has to offer. In not at all chronological order...

We tasted a lot of beer. Given our location, we were obligated to give the best that NZ has to offer a try. And it was good! We stopped first at Traveller's Rest just outside of Nelson, which is not a brewery but features an all-local tap list. We got a 6 drink sampler and enjoyed everything, most of all the manuka honey beer from Mussel Inn and the cider from somewhere we can't remember. [lots of the breweries here make cider. hell yes!] Next we visited Golden Bear in Mapua, run by a Californian (though apparently he's not from Berkeley). The pale ale wasn't quite up to CA standards, but it was close and much better than anything we've had in a long time. We also tried Cimmaron, a 'smoky hoppy' beer. Not quite hoppy enough for the amount of malty it had, but the smoke was interesting. Golden Bear also sells wort, for fermenting at home. How cool is that?

Next we walked the 5 km from Riwaka to Motueka to visit one of Sprig & Fern's pubs. There are a bunch of these in the area, but after tasting the beer it's easy to see why. Everything here was good, including the burger, and we thoroughly enjoyed our 4 beers + 2 ciders sampler. The berry cider was too good, you'd go through a lot of that. On our way back from Golden Bay we next stopped at the Mussel Inn. We didn't get the mussels, though they looked awesome at the table next to us. We did however try some really interesting stuff. The apple cider was ok, not as good as Sprig & Fern or the anonymous cider from Traveller's Rest. The 100% feijoa (a local fruit) cider was quite good. And we had Lambigreeny: a barrel-aged feijoa gueze. Say that out loud: a barrel-aged feijoa gueze. How cool is that? It was also quite good, though almost less tart than the feijoa cider despite the lambic-ness.

Our last stop was Monkey Wizard, the local-est option down the street in Riwaka. Apparently the brewer is a grumpy guy (we didn't meet him), but he's good at beer. The wheat beer was excellent; the raspberry wheat was even better. There was an IPA that was quite good, and several beers with local hops (some grown in Riwaka and some Nelson Sauvin variety) that we didn't care too much for. We walked away with a bottle of cider--hand-pressed local cider variety apples fermented with the natural yeast. How cool is that? The cider was quite good.

Aside from beer, we stopped at a winery: Neudorf. Lonely Planet says it's the best in town, and everything we tried was excellent. We got a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and enjoyed it very much with the soup we made. We plan to hit another winery on the way out of town tomorrow.

We also visited Abel Tasman, Golden Bay, and the Farewell Spit, to offset all the drinking. Our day at the spit and bay was a cloudy one, with a bit of rain here and there. We took a short walk along the bay side of the spit, and spent some time drinking tea at the overlook. Most of the spit is off-limits to protect the migratory birds. The bay was similarly grey and rainy, though our stop at Mussel Inn was very nice.

Abel Tasman was a much better time. We got a good bit of clouds, but sun peeked through especially over the water. We took a 27 km walk from Marahau to Torrent Bay and back, perhaps a bit of a long walk but it was nice. We thought about kayaks, but for more than $100 we decided that the free walk was a better bet. Same for the water taxis that drop you off/pick you up in various spots. Our walk hugged the coastline and the many bays with sandy beaches and blue waters, offshore islands, tons of streams coming off the hills, and other general beauty. We stopped for lunch on the beach at Torrent Bay after crossing the flats at low tide, then turned around for the return journey. Excellent walk.