We took the opportunity of having some time on our hands to give Babette a good scrub and taking a lovely long shower in the shower block of the camp site. A quick stop to the "dump station" (where you clean out your....well.....dumps!) and then we were on the road again.
The drive to Wellington is a simple affair, there aren't many roads in NZ. Basically keep going straight...the SatNav is almost redundant. Especially with a German Co-Pilot equipped with a paper roadmap. It was Easter Monday and we knew already that we'd get stuffed up somewhere in a traffic jam, so we'd relaxed and left ourselves 5 hours to get there and still be there by 7pm. We were to stay down by the docks in what was essentially a car park with showers. However it had good strong and above all free internet connection, was in the middle of town and was a 5 minute drive to the ferry terminal in the morning. With a check-in time of 7.25am, staying out of town and driving in at the crack of dawn was not going to happen.
The closer we got to Wellington the more it felt unreal to be leaving the North Island behind. Already a chapter of the journey was closing. Then fate stepped in and allowed us to sit around and enjoy it some more......traffic. To be fair it wasn't that long and in that time we booked our spot at the car park/camp site. Again, the reason for the traffic jam was galling. A round-about........don't get me started. I just deleted 150 words of ranting about how rubbish the driving out here is and let's just leave it at that.
The descent into town once you hit the outskirts is a very pretty drive and luckily there was barely any traffic in the centre. These NZ-ers really take their public holidays seriously.....no alcohol sales, hardly any shops open and in the main only tourists on the street. After a bit of research we set off into town, walking along the harbour front and heading in the direction of a the main restaurant area. We picked an Asian fusion place and had a lovely meal.....our first food outside of Babette since we had met her. It felt treacherous, but it tasted great :) Cocktails and a bottle of wine (half of which we sneaked out with us) in our bellies we were in good spirits as we headed back to Babette.
The night was surprisingly quiet (given we were parked on a main road) and at 6.30am, when we woke, we were up and about with military efficiency....on the road within 20 minutes. It's a 3 hour trip to the South Island and we'd booked into the lounge, with free internet, food/drink, no screaming kids and comfy sofas. Delightful. The views...oh the views were magnificent. What more to say.....look at the pictures, save up, buy a flight, come out and see for yourselves.
Around midday we docked and after a short fright (I'd forgotten my Mountain Goat hat in the lounge) we were off again, in search of a Sea Kayaking firm that we'd booked a trip with in Picton.
Picton by rights should be another fairly ugly port town. It's (I believe) the main port with the North Island and so sees a lot of traffic....freight and otherwise. But it's just so picturesque. We parked up and looked around at what was a really cute small town. Bloody NZ-ers seem able to make everything look pretty.
After a quick check-in we were once again in kayaks, though this time on the sea and heading off to Marlborough Sounds. This is an area where there are hundreds of islands dotted around the coastline of the northern end of the South Island. Our guide reckoned on nearly a third of NZ's coastline is in the Marlborough Sounds....more than the entirety of Portugal.
The sun was beating down and the Saroians were in a tandem sea kayak in the Pacific......lovely. Julia was steering (of course!) and I was up front. What little I could write wouldn't do this place justice. Rounding small islets and seeing sea lions sunbathing, watching birds wheel and dive into the sea, bathing in the riot of blues and greens that Marlborough was painted in, well, words fail the beauty of the area. We have two more Sounds to visit, Milford and Doubtful....they are supposed to be even better and I cannot wait to see HOW!
When we got back we had the choice; relax in Picton and face a long drive down to Punakaiki the next day, or take a 2 hour drive to the Richmond/Nelson area. Or we could do the long drive that evening....but that was never really going to happen! On the drive to the drop-off point of the sea kayaks, we'd gone up a beautiful coastal road, winding along the base of the mountains and dropping off on the right to the sea. We'd been told to take this road towards Punakaiki and with the sun still shining and the promise of a more relaxing couple of days if we bit the bullet then and there, we took to the road again.
We pulled into Richmond as day was ending and Julia immediately set about making a lovely vegetarian pasta. It had been a good decision to make that drive when we did, the weather wasn't going to hold much longer and tomorrow there would be rain. Reducing the time you spend driving in rain is always a good thing :)
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