Wellington, the capital of New Zealand

After leaving Napier in the afternoon, we arrived in Wellington in the evening. Unlike many other cities, New Zealand's capital city on the southern edge of the North Island does not have the atmosphere of a ghost town in the evenings and there are numerous well-visited bars and pubs.

Even during the day, there is a lively activity in 'Windy Welly' (the name says it all, as we noticed directly on arrival). We really liked not only the charming and varied city architecture, but also the numerous activities that made our stay never boring.

The National Museum Te Papa Tongarewa, which is known as 'Treasure Chest' in English, is worth mentioning. It offers interesting exhibitions on New Zealand's history in 6 floors, such as an exhibition on the effects of human actions on flora and fauna.

In addition, we admired the 25 hectare Botanic Gardens, which are located on a hill above the city.

On the last evening, we met Hauke from Kiel, who also planned to take the ferry to the South Island the next day, so he took us to the harbor by car.

Since Picton, our arrival point on the South Island, is simply described in the travel guide as 'Gateway to the South Island' (which says everything about whether you should stay longer there), we decided to continue our journey to Nelson.

This city, with just under 50,000 inhabitants, is considered one of the sunniest places in New Zealand, which is why we decided to visit the beach.

But Nelson is not only known for its many hours of sunshine, but also for its wineries and microbreweries (hence the name 'Beer Brewing Capital'), so we were naturally obliged to take a beer tour of local craft beer breweries, where we were the 'guinea pigs' of a recently launched tour operator. Experiment successful, as they say, and we got a good taste of some local breweries.

The next day, Sunday morning, together with Hauke, we set off for Abel Tasman National Park to start the multi-day 'Abel Tasman Coast Track', which is one of the 9 'Great Walks' in New Zealand.