The last days on the South Island: Farewell Spit, Nelson Lakes NP and Marlborough Sounds

The return journey to the North Island was getting closer and there were only a few days left on the South Island, for which we had more than enough ideas to fill them.

This time we definitely wanted to go to the northernmost tip of the South Island (we had already been to the southernmost tip with Bluff - and Stewart Island was even further south ...): Cape Farewell. The cape is followed by the crescent-shaped Farewell Spit peninsula, which was also on the itinerary. Also in this area is Wharariki Beach, which has become famous as a desktop background for Windows PCs. We naturally wanted to see that as well.

On the way to and from the far north, there was still some time to visit the Te Waikoropupu Springs and the Ngarua Cave (a limestone cave), and to make a short detour to the Split Apple Rock. The latter was once again the only activity in Abel Tasman NP this time, which was a little bit of a shame, but not sooo bad, because we had always enjoyed visiting this national park with fairly extensive visits during our previous visits.

The very last days before the ferry ride we spent in Blenheim, because we wanted to meet (and met) with our daughter's former host family. From there we made two hiking trips: one to the Nelson Lakes National Park and one to the Marlborough Sounds.

During the hike in the Nelson Lakes NP we were lucky to see some of the endangered forest parrots (kakas), and the views we reached after 1000 meters of altitude were quite nice too - luckily there were occasional holes in the quite dense cloud cover.

We had already driven through part of the Marlborough Sounds on the way to Blenheim and had enjoyed the many beautiful views of the Queen Charlotte Sound from the Queen Charlotte Drive (and had eaten at the Queen Charlotte Tavern). Now we also hiked a section of the multi-day hike named after Queen Charlotte through the fjords. We started and ended this section with the here common means of transportation - the water taxi. Here too there were beautiful views again and again.

So that everything doesn't go too smoothly and we are allowed to improvise at least a little bit again, the ferry company thought it would spoil us with a half extra day on the South Island and informed us that the ferry would not leave until 9 p.m. instead of 2 p.m. We used the time to visit Cape Campbell Lighthouse (3h hike) and to take another scenic drive in the Marlborough Sounds. Finally our extra time was shortened again - now the departure should be at 7:45 p.m. Actually, it became even earlier, so we left the South Island around 7 p.m. (on April 7th)...