The Nelson / Tasman Region
Located at the north end of New Zealand’s South Island, the Nelson/Tasman region, with its sunshine and landscape, leisure and lifestyle, acts as a magnet attracting potential residents and visitors from all over the world.

The region enjoys a warm year-round climate, with more sunshine than any other part of New Zealand – the daily average being almost 7 hours. Summer temperatures are in the twenties, winter snows confined to the hills, and even around Tapawera, where, in contrast to the frost-free coastal plains, winter temperatures can reach minus six or eight degrees Celsius at night, you can sit outside in shirtsleeves the following day under a brilliant, cloudless sky. Rainfall is light in summer, moderate in autumn and spring, periods of more heavy rain in winter are relatively short-lived, and it is rare indeed for more than a day or two to go by without seeing the sun. Winds are generally light.

With a population of some 43,000, the cathedral city of Nelson is New Zealand’s tenth largest city, and within the South Island second only to Christchurch. It is also the largest fishing port in Australasia. Foundations of the city were laid in 1841, and at Nelson College, some 40 years later, its most illustrious pupil, the atomic physicist, Ernest Rutherford, was educated (he was born at the hamlet of Brightwater, just south of Richmond).

The neighbouring town of Richmond, with a population of 11,000 is a centre for the agricultural activities of the Tasman District. It contains a wide variety of shops and other amenities, including every conceivable supplier of farming goods and equipment – and no parking meters or traffic wardens!

Stockyards serving the Tasman district are located at Brightwater (some ten minutes nearer to Tapawera) where there are weekly sales, and there is a large meatworks by Richmond.

The region is home, not only to farmers and fruit-growers, horticulturalists and market gardeners, but also to artists and craftsmen, winemakers and brewers, potters, weavers and fashion designers, wood-carvers and glass-blowers, chefs and entrepreneurs. The Ring for Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy was made by a Nelson goldsmith. Nelson’s popular Saturday morning market contains stalls offering a wide variety of local produce and crafts, and a similar market is held every Sunday in Motueka. In studios, galleries and boutiques throughout the region, over three hundred and fifty local artists and craftspeople display the objects of their individual skill, while regular exhibitions are held in Nelson’s Suter and Rutherford galleries and other dealer galleries within the city. Nelson is also birthplace of New Zealand’s Wearable Arts phenomenon, with a permanent exhibition at the World of Wearable Arts and Collectable Cars Museum. There are regular on-stage drama productions at the Theatre Royal, Opera in the Park, a winter Festival of Jazz, and other local and national music events at the Nelson School of Music. The Nelson lifestyle is a relaxed one: the streets are lined with cafes where people sit under sunshades in the open air; there are parks and gardens, and an attractive, tree-lined walkway beside the river which runs through the centre of the city.