Nelson

Golden bays alternate with granite headlands here, and walkers choose a bay where a water taxi collects them. Huts and campsites on the track fill early every season and need booking, and some estuaries can be crossed on foot only at the right tide.

On the hilltop behind the Botanics reserve in town stands a monument labelled the Centre of New Zealand. It is not the true geographic middle but the origin point of 19th-century surveys, and a twenty-minute walk up gives views over the city and bay.

Every Saturday morning stalls fill Montgomery Square in town with pottery and woodwork by local makers, fruit and bread. It is quieter early on, and after noon the stalls start packing up one by one.

A cathedral crowning a rise where the main street stops, entered up a broad flight of stone steps. It is built of local stone that includes marble, and turning round on the uppermost step you look straight down Trafalgar Street.

A broad sandy beach a ten-minute drive from town, where low tide bares sandbars far out and the shallows stretch on for ages. The reserve behind it has rides and a small animal park, so families crowd in, and kitesurfers gather in a good breeze.

A small bay at the southern gateway to Abel Tasman, known for orange-tinged golden sand and clear green water. Boats into the national park leave straight off this beach, and in the summer peak the campground fills months ahead.

A round granite boulder in the sea, cleft in two like an apple cut with a knife. Most boats from Kaiteriteri pass close by, and once the tide drops a walk from the neighbouring beach brings you close.

Winning pieces from the wearable art competition that began in Nelson are shown under theatrical lighting in dark galleries. A classic car museum shares the building, and one ticket covers the pair.

A mountain lake in Nelson Lakes National Park, ninety minutes' drive south of the city. Big eels gather in the clear water under the jetty at St Arnaud village and are easy to see from the boards, though feeding them is banned. Sandflies swarm the shore.

Over the hill road into Golden Bay lies one of the clearest freshwater sources in the world. The water is sacred to Maori, so touching it or going in is forbidden, and from a timber deck you watch sand boil up from the bottom.

Outdoor heritage grounds gathering shops, a church and a school from settler-era Nelson onto one street. The big windmill at the entrance shows from far off. Some of the old shopfronts house working businesses and studios, unlike a look-only museum.

New Zealand's longest sandspit, curving out from the northern tip of Golden Bay. It shelters migrating birds, so walkers may go only partway; past that, licensed tour vehicles alone enter. Tours to the lighthouse follow the tides, so start times shift daily.

A wind-blasted beach you reach after walking 20 minutes over pasture and dunes, with the arched Archway Islands standing offshore. At low tide seal pups play in the rock pools. Currents are fierce, so do not swim, and keep your distance from the seals.

A mostly flat cycle trail from Nelson past coast, orchards and vineyards to Motueka. At Mapua wharf a small ferry carries bikes across to the island section. Wineries and cafes line the way, so most riders do a few stretches a day.

On State Highway 6 between Nelson and Blenheim, the green Pelorus River runs beneath the bridge beside a beech forest reserve. Part of The Hobbit's barrel sequence was shot on this river. In summer people leap into the cold, deep pool below, so take care.