We loved this part of New Zealand! The Marlborough Sounds region is located at the top of New Zealand’s South Island. It’s a region known for its natural beauty, unique waterways and lush verdant forests and wineries.
This post is largely about my impressions after spending 3 nights in this extremely beautiful part of the world. We have been to New Zealand twice before but had only spent a day previously in this area*, so I had wanted to get back for some years.
It’s a great place for a holiday if you like wineries, hiking, kayaking, boating, scenic drives, mountain biking or just looking at beautiful landscapes. Popular for ecotourism and adventure tourism including activities such as caving. Although this statement could really apply to any part of New Zealand, I think.
*Dolphin boat tour out of Picton after arriving on the ferry from Wellington before driving on to Nelson.
Weather
This part of the South Island has a temperate oceanic climate and gets quite a lot of sunshine per year. It’s great in summer if you like warm to hot weather. We were there in late January and had some beautiful days from mid twenties to low thirties. For those reading that are Australians, this part of New Zealand’s latitude is roughly in line with Launceston in Tasmania.
Driving
Overall the South Island of New Zealand is road trip heaven! So easy for those of us from countries that drive on the left too!
One of the joys of driving around this area, and the South Island in general, is the many scenic views. Pretty much any drive from one area to another is scenic but some are particularly special. The drive from Marlborough Sounds to the Abel Tasman National Park is one of those. Views to die for! It is a narrow, windy road though. Very hard for the driver to keep eyes on the road!
Another feature is the lack of traffic. In this part of NZ, the biggest town/city is Nelson which has a population of approx. 60,000. Outside Nelson the towns are quite small. So no traffic jams to stress about. And of course, Google Maps makes it quite easy to get from one town to another and signage is pretty good too.
The only drawback with the driving is that there was quite a lot of road works going on over all of the South Island actually. So whether this is normal or we just struck an unusual period I’m not sure. But something to keep in mind if you are driving to an airport to catch a plane! Also most of the roads are single lane roads and you have to accept the fact that at some point you will get stuck behind a slow driver. So you do need to allow a bit of extra time to drive from one area to another.
To summarise, the South Island is an easy place to drive around and generally very enjoyable. It’s a wonderful location for a road trip!
General Info
The Marlborough Sounds area is really a visual feast! Full of forested hills, sunken valleys, islands and peninsulas. There are two main waterways in the Marlborough Sounds – Queen Charlotte Sound (near Picton) and Pelorus Sound (near Havelock). The latter is much less populated.
If travelling from the North Island, catching a ferry from Wellington in the North Island to Picton in the South Island is the way to go. There are two main towns in this district that are on the water – Picton, the bigger of the two and probably the most picturesque, and Havelock which is smaller but very quaint and an enjoyable place to stay. It is where we chose to stay and we were really pleased with our choice. There are quite a few good restaurants and cafes for such a small town and a very good tourist information centre.
Boating and Hiking
Just a fantastic location for either boating or hiking! From either town you can do short day or multi-day hikes in many different locations. The Queen Charlotte Track is very well known and popular for both hikers and mountain bikers. Spectacular scenery and views in a pristine environment makes this track one of the most popular attractions of this area. It has good facilities (toilets and accommodation) and so suitable for short walks or multi-day walks. Water taxis can be used to either drop you off at your starting point and/or pick you up at your final destination.
Your choice of boat trips in the Sounds is plentiful. You might catch water taxis to a certain location and do some hiking, or perhaps even go sailing for the day. This is where we found the Tourist Information Centre in Havelock to be really helpful. We told the staff member there how much time we wanted to spend on a boat trip and how long a hike we were looking for. She gave us a great solution for us personally which combined those two things.
Other options include joining the mail boat for the day delivering mail to all the homes in out-of-the-way places in the Sounds. With this tour is also the option for either a one hour walk (take your own lunch) or a farm tour and picnic. Alternatively, maybe a boat tour of the mussel farms might be more to your liking. Havelock calls itself the Greenshell mussel capital of the world. For those that like mussels, they are big and fleshy and good!
Another popular option is getting on a cruise boat via Picton, where you can go for a few hours scenic tour of the Sounds in comfort with a meal provided.
Something we did a decade ago whilst just passing through the area and was great way to spend the day is to go out on a dolphin tour from Picton. We got to swim with the dolphins (more like watching them speed past us whilst we in the water) and was a really great experience.
Lots of great sea kayaking tours in the area too! Marlborough Sounds has 1500 kms of coastline so lots of places to explore. You might also see seals, dophins and birdlife while viewing beautiful lush green landscapes. There are guided tours or you can do your own thing.
Mountain bikers are attracted to the area too. So really no end of options!
Our Choice of Boating and Hiking
After receiving advice at the Information Centre, we drove about 45 mins (very scenic drive) to Te Mahia Bay in the Kenepuru Sound. We were met there promptly by the water taxi booked the day before and taken around the area for 2 hours. We saw mussel farms, a shipwreck, beautiful bays and beaches and unique forest vegetation with a bit of commentary as we went. Weather was wonderful too!
Then after getting off the boat we drove just up the road, and walked up a very steep track for an hour or so to get to the top of the Onahau Bay Lookout where we were joined by an inquisitive Weka native bird. The views were amongst the most spectacular I have ever seen! (See featured photo at top of this post for the views we saw.) Definitely worth the steep hot climb!
Wineries
If you are wanting to stay close to all the vineyards you might choose to stay slightly inland at Blenheim and perhaps do a bicycle, bus or private tour of the wineries and vineyards. The Marlborough region is NZ’s largest wine growing area! So lots of wine to be tasted, bought and drunk!
The area is primarily known for Sauvignon Blanc, but also grows a lot of Chardonnay, Reisling, Pinot Noir and smaller quantities of other grape varieties. I’m not a big fan of Sauvignon Blanc myself, but I do like my Chardonnay and Pinot Noir!
We had considered doing a winery tour but they seemed very expensive to us. So we decided to drive ourselves and just be careful of the amount of wine we were drinking. It turned out to be a great choice for us.
We visited just two wineries, which were both about 10 mins out of Blenheim towards Havelock where we were staying. The first winery was Hunter’s Wines. This is a family owned winery that has been going for over 30 years. It has won 200+ gold medals at national and international competitions and they export about 80% of their wine, so by any measure they are a very good winery. But this wasn’t what impressed us when we were there. We had a wine tasting which started at the bar/counter and then we were shown to a beautiful outdoor setting in their gorgeous gardens to continue the tasting – how wonderful! The weather was perfect and we ordered a couple of snacks and a glass of wine after our tasting. So it really was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours. And we had a great hostess in Ilona. Of course the wines were good too! So although there are, no doubt, many good wineries in the area, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend visiting this one.
The second winery we visited was St Clair Family Estate, which was also very good but quite different. This winery is also long established and has been going for even longer then Hunter’s and has won many impressive awards nationally and internationally including recently being ranked in the top 100 wineries in the word (by the World Association of Wine Writers and Journalists). The outdoor courtyard and gardens looked out on to the vineyards and mountains and was very pretty. The menu is more extensive that Hunters but the tasting experience was very rushed and impersonal, probably because it was so busy. So we did prefer Hunters to St Clair’s.
Useful Links
Visit Marlborough Sounds Region
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Hope you’ve enjoyed this Travel Inspiration from an Empty Nester!
Wow – I enjoyed reading this so much. We love NZ and had 3 weeks driving around the South Island several years ago in a motorhome. Would love to go back for another couple of weeks and spend at least 3-5 days in Marlborough Sounds – thanks to all your very informative information in this post.
Me – I’m a San Blanc lover and only ever drink Marlborough Sound produced wine. So I’m already a convert there. What time of the year were you there Jenny?
Thank you again for putting all this fabulous info into a concise and easy to follow post.
Thanks Joycee, glad you enjoyed it. We were there late January in this area and then went into early Feb for the rest of our trip. Luckily got home a few weeks before NZ borders closed!