Nelson is a really nice town in the centre of New Zealand. The first free day we had here we went to Abel Tasman national park about 2hrs outside of Nelson. We had to get a boat ride to a drop off point before starting a 13km hike. We actually ended up going a different way and added an extra 5km onto the journey but it was worth it because aspects of the park are amazing!!

Almost forgot on the boat to the drop off point we randomly passed through a pod of dolphins and they started swimming in the wake of the boat, at least 15 of them, it was very unusual but great to see. On the hike itself we came to a crossroads beside one of the beaches that said we could take either a 30min hike in one direction during low tide or a 1hr 30min hike in high tide. It actually was high tide and we decided to risk it...for some reason...

Five of us walked out to the lagoon and waded out into the water to see how deep it was. It went up waste high on me at the deepest and when i made it to the other side the other 3 lads and sile started wading across. Unfortunately for Sile the water went higher than her waist and she got a little wet! But we managed to save ourselves an hour of time :)

We seen some pretty amazing scenery along the hike and stopped off for lunch on a look out point with great views of the beaches. There were many other great spots like that along the way but were were all glad to reach then end on time for the bus back to Nelson.

We just lazed around Nelson then for a few days, read books, caught up on sleep etc.

We came back to Nelson on the 9th June after the match in Wellington. We walked to the centre of New Zealand, just a spot on the top of a hill, nice views etc. Then we just cooked dinner, after many, many rice dinners we finally got the rice not to be slushy and stick together. So that was exciting....! Then off to bed for early (6.30am) start the next morning!