Nelson Region

In 1841 the settlement of Nelson was founded by Edward Gibbon Wakefield's New Zealand Company. It was part of a grandiose scheme to systematically colonise the whole country with small farms clustered around centrally located towns. The idea was to found the new colony by transplanting a selection of migrants from all of the English social classes, but in reality 'too few gentlemen with too little money' took up the challenge. The land in the towns was distributed early but not the farmland as the New Zealand Company's entitlement to the land was under dispute. The settlers were forced to live in the towns and use up their capital and things went from bad to worse when Captain Wakefield was killed in the Wairau Affray and the New Zealand Company was declared bankrupt. The colony almost foundered in its early years but the favorable climate and a lot of hard work by the settlers saw them eventually prosper. Today the city is renowned for its parks and gardens, boasting a number of stately homes and restored cottages dating back to the 1860s. A flourishing arts and crafts movement is supported by numerous galleries, pottery trails, markets and museums.

An early cottage, Nelson

1nelson

The trip starts on SH6 in Nelson.
Numerous homes survive in Nelson from the early days of the settlement, including the quaint workmen's cottages in South Street and Richmond Avenue. On Brougham Street you will find the rather grand mansion Melrose while on Nile Street East, Bishop's School features a display of textbooks and items dating back to 1844, when it first opened. On Trafalgar Square, Nelson's Christ Church Cathedral is the third and most imposing church to be built on the site and was completed over a 40-year period from 1925. Founders Heritage Park on Atawhai Drive is a reconstruction of a colonial town, featuring two separate sections connected by an operating railway. This museum park also has an audio-visual display on the Port of Nelson and a complex maze. Nearby you can enjoy a little slice of Japan at the Miyazu Japanese Gardens. The Suter Art Gallery on Bridge Street is the third oldest art museum in the country, established in 1898. It houses a permanent collection of nationally significant paintings and lithographs including works by Lindauer, Van der Velden and Woollaston, with exhibitions covering a diverse range of subjects including sculpture and fibre crafts. Nelson is also renowned for the quality of its local clay and has become famous for its pottery. Glass-blowing, wood-carving and other arts and crafts are also prevalent and you can explore the numerous studios and galleries by picking up a brochure on the Arts Trail from the Visitor Information Centre on Trafalgar Street. There is also information on the vineyards in the area which are noted for the quality of their grapes and distinctive wines. You can visit the world of Wearable Art and Collectable Cars Museum and take a drive up onto Botanical Hill for panoramic views across the city.

Nelson - Broadwood

2Stoke

From Nelson take SH6 and drive 1 km southwest on Wakefield Quay then continue on Rocks Road 1.6 km to Tahunanui Drive and continue 1.4 km onto Annesbrook Drive. Continue 1.5 km onto the Main Stoke Road and continue 1.1 km to Stoke. Isel park is on the left.
At Isel Park on the main road in Stoke, spacious grounds feature rhododendrons and azaleas growing under the shelter of century-old trees that were brought to the area from all over the world by sea captains at the request of wealthy landowner Thomas Marsden. Isel House is a stately two-storey home built of stone that has been restored and is now in use as a gallery and museum. Behind it is the Nelson Provincial Museum, the oldest in the country, featuring a large collection of Maori artefacts and an extensive array of historical photographs from the area. In Stoke you will also find Woodstock, a notable cob house built in the 1850s and Broadgreen built in 1855, which is one of the largest rammed-earth cob houses in the country. A costumed guide will take you through this fine example of a gentleman's residence that has been restored and furnished with careful attention to period detail and is set in beautiful gardens.

3richmond

Continue southwest 3 km on Main Stoke Road and turn right onto Richmond Devon. Continue 0.2 km and turn left onto Richmond Devn. Drive southwest 2 km on SH 6 to Richmond.
Named after Richmond-on-Thames in England, this town boasts the Holy Trinity, consecrated in 1872 and one of New Zealand's finest country churches, built in timber in the style of a traditional English-style church. A huge gum tree standing at the entrance to the Richmond Racecourse was planted by Francis Otterson, one of the early settlers who arrived in 1842 on the Lord Auckland.

4motueka

From Richmond continue southwest 1.5 km on Gladstone Road and turn right onto SH60 and Appleby Highway. Drive northwest 34 km to Motueka.
Motueka is the main centre for the orchards and vineyards of the Waimea Plains. Pip fruits and berries are grown here, along with hops for the beer industry and green tea. The tall hop vines can be seen in farms along the roadsides, the plants trained onto poles and wire frames. They produce a scaly cone-like fruit which is kiln-dried and used in brewing beer. The main fruit-picking season for apples, kiwifruit and grapes runs from March through until June. Motueka was founded back in 1842 and still retains its small port on the Moutere Inlet, a short distance from the main street. Built in 1897, Te Ahurewa on Pah Street is one of the South Island's few Maori churches and contains a number of interesting relics and Maori decorations.

5kaiteriteri

Continue north 7.8 km on SH60 and turn right onto the Riwaka Kaiteriteri Road. Drive north 5.8 km to Kaiteriteri on the coast road.
Kaiteriteri is one of the most popular beaches in the South Island, with clear blue water and the golden sands that are typical of the area. The sands derive from hard granite rock that has formed deep within the earth's crust under extreme heat and pressure. As the rock cools, tiny cracks called 'joints' form and these weak points are subjected to weathering when the rock is uplifted to the surface of the Earth. Weak natural acids created by rainwater seeping through vegetation eat their way into the joints, breaking apart the crystals of quartz, feldspar and mica that make up the granite. The glittering gold mica particles turn into iron compounds to eventually be washed down the rivers along with hard quartz crystals to form the magnificent golden beaches along the coast.

6marahau

Continue north 6.4 km on the Kaiteriteri Sandy Bay Road and continue 3.4 km on Sandy Bay Marahau Road and 0.3 km on Harvey Road to Marahau and the start of the Abel Tasman Coastal Track.
In 1642 the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sailed into Golden Bay to become the first European to reach New Zealand. Today the coastline of the National Park that bears his name holds the same appeal for modern day visitors as it did for those early explorers. Marahau is the southern access point to the Abel Tasman National Park and it is also the starting point for the popular Abel Tasman Coastal Track. The track is 55 km long, but visitors can take a short walk on the Tinline Walk through forest where many of the native tree species including beech, kahikatea, rimu and pukatea have been labelled on a short loop track. This part of the bay is named the Astrolabe Roadstead because the French navigator Jules Dumont d'Urville anchored his corvette the Astrolabe here in 1827.

Takaka-Hill

7The takaka hill

Return to SH60 and continue west 17 km up the Takaka Hill to the viewpoint above the Takaka Valley.
There are plenty of places to stop and admire the views on the road over the forest covered mountain range known as the Takaka Hill. Also known as the ‘Marble Mountain’ the hill is made up of a huge granite dome over 100 million years old. The granite runs beneath even older formations of marble, a type of metamorphic limestone which has been changed by heat and pressure deep and has recrystallised, changing its grain and colour. Formed about 450 million years ago, the rock was gradually uplifted from beneath the sea to create a mounain range. The rock has weathered and an intricate system of underground rivers and caves now lies beneath the mountain. Roads and walking tracks lead to huge drop shafts and to natural springs where the water wells up onto the plains below. This is all part of the karst landscape of weathered rock formations that make up this fascinating area. You can visit the Ngarua cave on the Takaka Hill, complete with stalactites in the huge Wedding Cathedral, as well as the carbonated bones of the now extinct Moa. If you stop at the lookout by the roadside on the top of the hill you can also see outcrops of fluted marble that is known as karren. Rainwater flowing down the sides of the limestone has gradually dissolved grooves into the rock, forming the distinctive fluted ridges that can be seen today. Once you get across the Takaka Hill you will see large stretches of dried-up riverbed where streams have cut their way underground into the limestone rock. There are extensive subterranean river systems in this part of the countryside, some of which emerge out at sea off the coast of Golden Bay.

The rocky coast near Pohara

8Pohara

Continue down the hill on SH60 10 km and then continue 21.3 km on SH60 and ther Takaka Valley Highway to Takaka. Turn left onto Willow Street and then right onto Motupipi Street. Drive 1.1 km and turn right onto Abel Tasman Drive and drive north 7.9 km to Pohara.
Pohara is a small beachside resort with a population that quadruples over summer. Nearby Tarakohe Harbour is Pohara’s working port and Ligar Bay has a lookout and a memorial to Abel Tasman, who anchored here in December 1642. The area is popular with rock climbers, featuring two of the finest limestone crags in the country with long mid range routes at Pohara and hard classics at Paynes Ford in the Takaka Valley. The Paynes Ford routes are generally vertical to slightly overhanging with some interesting names including Goodbye Cream Poofters, Stairway Of The Gods, Bored Of The Rings, Rat Up A Drainpipe, Burn Hollywood Burn, R For Ranger D For Danger, You're Either Dead Or You're Not, Send A Gorilla, African Headcharge, Creative Confusion, and Dancing On A Skewer. The 30 minute track to the reserve follows an old railway that carried timber from the Takaka Valley to the Waitapu Wharf in the 1880s. Even if you are not climbing, it is still interesting to watch the climbers in action on the limestone bluffs.

9waikoropupu springs

Return to Takaka and continue northwest on SH60 and Waitapu Road 3.3 km onto the Takaka Collingwood Highway. Continue northwest 0.9 km and turn leftonto Pupu Valley Road, drive 2 km southwest and turn left onto Pupu Springs Road and drive 1 km to the Waikoropupu Springs Scenic Reserve.
The 'Pupu' Springs, as they are usually known, are the largest springs in New Zealand. Incredibly clear, cold and slightly salty water bubbles up out of sand from the two large vents that make up the biggest spring, while several smaller vents make up the 'Dancing Sands' group of springs. The springs are tidal, but the cycle indicates these are earth rather than sea tides. Researchers believe that the enormous volumes of water come from the Takaka River which dries up most summers at a point near Lindsays Bridge, on the way to Waikoropupu Springs. Water is also fed in from Gorge Creek high up on the Canaan Plateau, where the stream runs underground below the massive drop shaft at Harwoods Hole. A series of tracks lead around the 16 main springs in the reserve and also through a gold mining area that dates back to 1901. You can still clearly see the old water races and 'working faces' where men from the Takaka Sluicing Company once washed river material over riffle boards to trap the particles of gold. Large boulders were stacked neatly to one side, while the finer gravels and sands were removed by a tail race. The company recovered nearly 4000 ounces (112 kg) of gold, making it one of the most successful Golden Bay companies, but by 1909 the gold had come to an end.

Nelson - Farewell Spit

10collingwood

Return to the Takaka Collingwood Highway and SH60. Turn left and drive 22.3 km northwest, turn right onto Collingwood Quay and drive northeast 0.8 km onto Haven Road in Collingwood.
Golden Bay was originally named for its gold rather than its sunny weather. As early as 1853, traces of gold were found in the Aorere valley with larger deposits being opened up in 1857. Over 2,500 men spread out from Collingwood to work these alluvial gravels while gold waas also being discovered in other areas in the region including the Matakitaki Valley, Mt Arthur, Wangapeka, and Lyell in the Buller Gorge. Once gold had been found and the area proved to be workable, it could be declared a goldfield by the provincial governments. In the   late 1850s however, the rush to Collingwood in Golden Bay created competition and conflict on the goldfields exposing the lack of laws to regulate the goldfields. The Miners’ Code was established, outlining procedures for staking claims and settling disputes, later giving rise to the Mining Act in 1859 with Gold wardens being appointed to oversee and hear disputes at each of the goldfields. Today Collingwood is a quiet town. It is a great place to enjoy fresh scallops and it is a base for a number of outdoor activities. You can rent a mountain bike and explore the Aorere Valley, try caving at Te Anaroa Caves, take a look at the rock formations and minerals at Rockville or hire a kayak and paddle around the Ruataniwha Inlet. From Collingwood you can organize to take a horse treks along Wharariki Beach, where there’s a seal colony or join an eco-tour to the bird sanctuary at Farewell Spit. Access to the Farewell Spit/Onetahua Nature Reserve is restricted, so the best way to see the wetlands and bird sanctuary is to join a supervised tour out to the historic lighthouse at the end of the 35 km sand spit. There are over 90 bird species in the reserve including bar tailed godwits, curlews, knots, turnstones and whimbrels. The tours visit the intertidal flats which are the feeding grounds for numerous waders as well continuing to the gannet colony beyond the lighthouse.