It was a spectacularly bright and sunny morning, not a cloud in the sky. We drove first to Blenheim, less than an hour away through lush meadows, great pine forests and dark green mountains. We thought we saw a cloud peeking over the top of a hill, but it turned out to be a snowy mountain in the distance. After a detour to see Cloudy Bay (which did indeed have an impressive bank of cloud far out to sea) we popped into the Cloudy Bay vineyards and sampled some of their fine produce. A pinot noir, a chardonnay and another white one (they'd sold out of sauvignon blanc). The chardonnay was definitely my favourite but it would have worked out more expensive to get some shipped home than buying it in England. We'll probably have to treat ourselves at Christmas!

After Blenheim we drove west across the top of the island and then up to the north coast. We had lunch in a cute little gold-mining town called Havelock and then went for a walk up a hill to a viewpoint over the town on one side and lots of little bays on the other. There was a young guy with a camper van in the car park, drying his carpets in the sun.

From Havelock we took a windy country road to see some more forested hills and sparkling bays, and the we retraced our route and sauntered up to Nelson. Once there, we found a hostel, walked round the town, found a supermarket, made some supper and checked our email.