Glengary Bed And Breakfast Picton

... of it again!

Headed over to Wellington on the Interislander ferry on the Thursday. Luckily was a gloriously sunny day so had a smooth three hour cruise over. Have to laugh all the interislander ferries are second hand cross channel ferries that used to live in Portsmouth! The journey out of the sounds is magical, but feels slightly incongrious in a huge cross channel ferry. Its a bit like trying to sail a ferry down the Thames, it looks a bit wierd and out of place!

... at least the sea looked fairly calm, seasick tablets were just in case! My memories of the trip back from the Outer Barrier Reef were still quite fresh.

Apart from my jumping around the various decks to take photos the voyage was fairly calm and really enjoyable going through Charlotte Sound and Marlborough Sound, beautiful and a really blue but very rough sea.

So I get the map pin set correctly I will continue 'North Island' on a new page - see you soon.

... the channels of water and curvy landscape. When we arrive at my host places and It looks amazing and there drive is about 10 paces from the waters edge. As I always do with the helpx I arrange to complete full days of work in exchange for full days off which generally works well for both party's. So as well doing my fair share of work I get tonnes of days off to do some wicked stuff while I was there including walking part of the wonderful Queen Charlotte track and biking from ...

... summer. I would love to see this so we'll see if it's open when we come back through town.

- Valentine's Day - went out to dinner. They have the best seafood here, but Brian got pork belly - whatever that is. Then we went to a FREE concert in the park. Tommy Love is his name and he is great - he is originally from NZ but I think works in Vegas. It was a comedy act with music. Very funny and entertaining. We drank our wine from a water bottle ...

... I had woke with about 5 mosquito bites on my face. Apparently it was a delayed reaction to the bites. Luckily Adam had an antihistamine that worked well, but the joke was that I looked like Shrek's wife. The second day we started out early for our next stop at Portage Bay, around 20 km away. The weather was really nice right away. And the sights from the ridge were amazing. We found out what a Sound is... it is an old river that has been flooded and ...

... of the cottages! She panicked: did her husband give us the right cottage as there is another couple staying in the cottage next door to us. Yes he had. Oh! Do we have milk in the little fridge? No we don't. So she instantly fetched a small milk jug for us but one carton of milk in the fridge was now cottage cheese. "Oh bother!" so she put this carton back in the fridge (why not throw it out??!) and got the other carton out..this was also cottage cheese! So she put that one ...

... window in which the crumble emerges and is devoured. Devasted. After a good nights rest, we felt it was time to head down the east coast and see all this fabulous NZ scenery people keep banging on about. It didn't take long before it turned fairly impressive. The road south east out of Picton to Blenheim was a picture of orchards and vineyards all in low rolling hills. Then came the dramatic stuff, we hit the coast and black sand beaches lined the way ...

... to see England dramatically tie the ODI series after being 2-0 down... or so we thought. Instead we witnessed a pretty awful match in a terrible stadium - the less said about it the better! From Christchurch, we headed further south to Dunedin, a city I didn't get to on my last visit. We had a great couple of days there, strolling around a very attractive city, taking it easy over a coffee or a glass of wine. We also happened to be there while ...

I awoke really early and it was a beautiful, sunny day with not a breath of wind; looking good for the skydive. We could hear trains passing last night, very noisily and in the light of day I could see the railway line directly above our heads. The scenery from the campsite is gorgeous, we are surrounded by mountains and I could see the walking tracks up them which I would like to attempt if we have the time. There is also a lovely little stream running through the site, the water is pure ...

... my feet up with a jigsaw puzzle.
We also had a longer-than-expected walk on the Abel Tasman track; what was supposed to be a six-hour loop took nearly 8 (wrong turn) and we ended up walking around 30km and returning to the car in the dark. Thank goodness for a full moon, even if there is no man in it here because it is upside down.

We have been staying in a lovely hostel called Kiwiana, which is themed round all the cultural things that make New ...