Nelson

Nelson is a cute artistic town nestled on the Tasman Bay on the northern part of the South Island of New Zealand. Nelson is the town where the famous "One Ring" was forged... sorry hobbits, it wasn't Mordor after all... the place where the ring was actually made was at Jens Hansen's goldsmiths!

“Ace was determined as to get me on top of the monument”.

Another really cool Nelson fact is that the center of New Zealand is located in Nelson, so we needed to go there and so should you.

On the way down from the center of freaking New Zealand, we met a lady and fellow American, Bobby Jo and she invited us to hang out on her sail boat (Hipnautical), which we did. We drank beers, sang songs, and talked about sailing adventures. My friend Lena went to the World of Wearable Art then caught up with Ace and I as we hung out on the beach where we cooked dinner, drank wine and watched the sun set.

The town has a coast town feeling with a vibrant downtown and really cool interesting things to do on the outskirts such as on to the way to the Abel Tasman National Park, stopping at the Hoglund Art Glass showroom and The Monkey Wizard Brewery. At the Monkey Wizard we tasted some pretty interesting beer, and I taught the girls about what a hop is, and naturally, we bought a liter.

Credit: Alexandra Berin

Nelson also has signs everywhere pointing you to different gardens, so we needed to investigate. We drove to this beautiful garden that was also someone's house but was featured in all sorts of gardening magazines where they had all sorts of plants that I have never seen, and a classic story book English formal garden.

Credit: Alexandra Bertin

Nelson is also really close to Pohara beach where we danced around and had a great time in the sand while watching the setting sun (video of Ace being five).