Woohoo, we made it - we've arrived in the South Island!

Very early start cos the morning ferry was cheaper than the evening one! The Interislander is one of 3 ferry options you can take - it's in the middle pricewise and takes 3 hours to cross the Cook Strait from Wellington to Picton. We tried really hard to stay awake and see the beautiful scenery of the Marlborough Sounds but we didn't!

Had a wander round Picton when we arrived which is a very small town. We'd been offered a helpx here but decided to turn it down and go to Nelson instead which is about 2 hours drive west of Picton.

Stayed at a lovely helpx called Kays Place in Nelson. We had our own rooms - total bliss, no noisy dorms. Kay is a very nice, faintly hippyish woman with a remarkable house. She wanted us to help in her garden which was no easy task. It was totally overgrown and weeds all tangled up with things she wanted to keep. Very sore muscles after 2 days and a few mishaps - Rafael cut 2 branches off the lemon tree, which didn't please her but she practices Buddhism so couldn't get angry! We had to work 2 1/2 hours a day in return for free accommodation but we worked all our hours over 2 days so we could take some time off.

Tiago (reluctantly) came with me to the WOW museum - World of Wearable Art. So fabulous - totally loved it, though it was overpriced. All the costumes are made out of strange and unusual material and some of them are very bizzare but so wonderful to see. There is a show held every year which we watched some of on a big screen and I would love to go but it's not till September in Wellington and who knows where I'll be by then. There's also a classic cars museum joined onto it which cheered up Tiago - very cool cars - Ferrari, Pink Cadallic, Buick.

On one of our days off we went to Abel Tasman National Park, which is NZ's smalled park but totally stunning. There are loads of beautiful walks to do here and the whole park takes 4 days to walk with basic huts along the way to overnight at. We only went for the day so we did a cruise/walk option. We cruised for about 1 hour through some lovely coastline and past a rock called 'split apple rock', whcih I'm sure ytou can imagine what it looked like. We got dropped off at a point called Torrent Bay, where the boys took an impromptu swim in their underwear, as the beach was lovely and the weather surprisingly hot (I sat it out though!). We then walked for 2 hours through some bush and over a rather scary swing bridge before reaching our pick up point - Bark Bay. We had picnic, lazed about for an hour or so and then got picked up by water taxi, which was laods of fun as it went quite fast and banged down on top of all the waves. The coastline and beaches at Abel Tasman are totally breathtaking - we would definitely like to come back here and do a different walk.

At the weekend we went to Nelson's Saturday market which was very good. Nelson is full of artists and such and so the market is full of loads of really nice art & craft and homegrown organic fruit & veggies. Could have bought loads here but our car is already overflowing (I'm not exaggerating). Then Tiago and I had a day of sightseeing (Rafael stayed in bed!). We drove to the Harbour then to a place called Founders Park. Very good value, we really enjoyed it here and stayed for over 2 hours. It's a replica village from the 1800's with all the shops, newspaper, brewery and train set up the way they would have looked. We had a visit to the brewery (of course) and tasted all the organic beers and as Rafael missed out, we had to buy some to take back for him to taste! Had lunch in the Japanese gardens and then contemplated doing the 1 hour walk to the (geographical) centre of NZ but decided against it!

As the weather here has been so good we have decided to stay a bit longer and top up our budgets as apple picking is in season here and they are desperate for workers. We stopped off at an orchard advertising for workers on the way back from Abel Tasman and were offered the job on the spot with free accommodation! It's in a small town called Motueka. Rafael is living in a caravan and Tiago and I have our own little bach (small self contained holiday home for you brits). No TV though which means no 'Desperate Housewives' - aaarrrggghhh! We couldn't start work today cos it rained! But hopefully we can start work on Tuesday or Wednesday. We get paid an hourly rate for our first 3 days and then a bin rate after that. We can work individually or as a team - it's up to us. I'm expecting it to be very hard work but also looking forward to trying something else new.

Kay has said we are welcome back at her place if we don't like it so at least we have another option, although her cats did keep bringing us small dead mice during the night - apparently it's a gift from them!

Will wirte again in a week or so to let you all know how the fruit picking is going. Lots of love everyone xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx