Sequoia Lodge Picton

The car ferry ride into Picton was awesome. We arrived in through the Marlborough Sounds which were beautiful, the sea was really calm and it was nice and sunny and the scenery was brilliant. Aldo went into picture meltdown snapping absolutely everything! We checked into the Sequioa Lodge hostel and started planning what walks in the Sounds we were going to do. We decided on a 14km part of the Queen Charlotte track, so at 8 am the next morning we were up and down to the harbour to catch our w...

* I hate ferries. But luckily, this one liked me, so no spewing occured. Probably for the first time in my life. Whoop.

* Picton is strange, The hostel was great: choc pudding and yummy ice cream, similar to my ma's puddle pudding.

* Marborough sounds was super pretty! Although the Italian Stallion blatently lied about the gradient, but she was right, it was definately worth all the clay that stuck to literally everything, and the sweat. The views were amazing - one of the pret...

Ok so here it is finally - a travel update extrodinairre from the last 2 months, sorry its been so long in coming but intermittent internet and memory access is to blame. the NZ adventures kicked off with a 16 hour film watching extravaganza on the plane from Jo'berg: East of Eden with Jimmy Dean, The Outsiders with Tom Waits cameo , and Love Actually with a nice reminder of wet London streets and British humour. then a stunning nights sleep (2 whole hours) at Auckland airport. Landing at 10p...

After a few days in Auckland, it was time to escape from the city again and to venture south. I caught the night train down to Wellington and then the ferry across the Cook Strait to Picton on the South Island. Last time Emma and I did the crossing it had been the middle of the night and so travelling up Queen Charlotte Sound for the first time was awesome. The weather was perfect and I could have asked for a better way to return to the South Island .... shame it wasn't to last!!! I spent a c...

Here we are in Picton, our last stop on the South Island. Tomorrow we'll cathc the ferry to Wellington and off we are to the North Island. The ferry ride is supposed to be amazing, the ferry takes you out through a bit of Malborough SOunds and out via the Cook Strait into Wellington. I am honsestly a bit scared of the ferry ride, because everyone I talked to was seasick, it gets crzy out there. But according to the friendly guy at the check in desk, we are on the newest and fastes boat, and t...

The following day we left Martinborough to head back to Wellington for our ferry ride across the Cook Strait. The journey on the ferry took 3 and a quarter hours and was quite rough due to the high winds and changeable weather they get in New Zealand at this time of year. As the ferry ride came to an end we sailed down through the Queen Charlotte Sound heading towards Picton and I braved a look outside, feeling slightly queasy and getting quite drenched in the process due to all the spray bei...

THURS: picton-nelson-motueka After staying the night at Sequoia lodge backpackers in Picton and meeting Irish RItchie, Gareth from Jersey (first other christian traveller I've met!), I headed off late on my scenic 35km cycle towards Havelock where I met the 2pm bus to Nelson. I had left a generous 4 hrs for the hilly cycle past the Queen Charlotte Sounds, but ended up with 2 hrs to do it! It was a stunning cycle on coastal roads, but I really had to push on in the sweltering heat and arrived ...

New Zealand-Aotearoa-Land of the Long White Cloud In the beginning there was doubt, confusion, and...miracles. Well, I finally made it back to my favorite place-New Zealand. As most of you know, I lived in New Zealand three years ago on an exchange program with my alma mater Boston University. I was a virgin to New Zealand and I was captivated by the majestic landscapes and the friendly indigenous people called Maoris. I was a bit skeptical coming back to this country because I wasn't sure ho...