nz day 3: picton

We woke before the sun rose to catch the first ferry out to Picton - situated at the head of Queen Charlotte Sound, one of four Sounds which make up Marlborough Sounds - just to be able to tell people that we've been to the south. Nah. Actually it was because we were told this ferry ride offers the best view of the Harbour and the Sounds which I totally believe from some of the pictures I've seen on the intarwebs before the trip. Hence the decision to sacrifice a hundred bucks and our beauty sleep for this ride. However, we were just not blessed with the luck of having good weather so all the magnificent beauty was denied us by a thick veil of rain and fog.


Our vessel Kaitaki. It was H-U-G-E. I was actually half expecting one of those dodgy Sydney Showboat-like boats.

The first thing you should always remember to do when on board any aircraft or ship is to familiarise yourself with the emergency procedures and escape routes. Especially for one who's as terrified of the ocean as me, there is a certain sense of assurance in knowing where the life rafts and safety vests are before you set sail.



Once we've established that there are enough life rafts on board to avoid a Titanic equivalent disaster, we set about doing our touristy stuff like snapping away at anything and everything with a certain vengeance, as if we were trying to distract ourselves from our exhaustion due to lack of sleep.







Then we explored the 10 levels (yes, I told you it was huge) of interior.


A very cool bar.


Shot taken before the entire area was claimed by similarly exhausted souls like us who probably didn't sleep the night before.


I wonder what they all did the night before. Did they have to push a dead car to the nearest petrol station like we did too?

We had to continually find things to entertain ourselves with on the three hour long ferry ride. Once we had enough of exploring the vessel and stuffing ourselves with huge sets of traditional Kiwi breakfasts, we started fooling around with my dSLR timer function.





Finally, we gave in to the zzz monster... I was told that I snored the entire time I was asleep. How embarrassing!



After a short beauty nap, we awoke to hear squeals of delight from kids all around us scrambling to get a better view of the dolphins swimming ahead of our boat. We scurried to the deck but couldn't see any of those cute playful marine mammals because we were on the wrong side of the vessel. The rain poured and the wind lashed at us mercilessly; we got so cold we had to wrap ourselves up like ninjas.



There was much stupefaction as my two travelling companions marvelled at the pointedness of my head with the hoodie on that they decided I could actually have been one of those mountains in my past life as evidenced in the picture below.



We survived the ferry ride and went straight to rent the cheapest car we could find at Bargain Rental Cars. The boy did the car renting work while we girls just bummed around with our cameras.





As we took the extremely winding Queen Charlotte Drive towards Havelock, we realised that 1) there were no other cars on the road and 2) almost every house we passed had a fancy colourful letterbox. So we started the games of 'count the number of cars we pass', 'guess the colour of the next car we pass' and 'do an emergency brake stop to take a picture when we next see a fancy letterbox' to pass the time in the car. Here's our humble collection of photos of those cute letterboxes.







Lunch was at The Mussel Pot in Havelock. We accidentally stumbled upon it and probably chose the place because of the cute little mussel men on the roof and at the entrance. I was sufficiently impressed by the food - their award winning seafood chowder is to die for! - to do a google search after the trip and was pleasantly surprised to find that they are actually an icon on Google Maps and a place not to be missed if you ever pass through Havelock.





We ordered a variety of both steamed and grilled mussels to try and they were all great. My favourite was the pot of steamed mussels in Thai green curry and coconut milk. However, I still rate the Siam flavoured mussels in the Heritage Belgian Beer Cafe above it although they cost almost twice the price.



Because we didn't get to visit any wineries in Wairarapa the previous day, we thought we'd do the winery trail here in the south instead. It was the first time ever that I got to actually have a full wine tasting experience because I didn't have to drive! We visited at least five cellars and must have tried at least twenty different whites, reds and dessert wine.




One should always take time to stop and smell the roses, and maybe photograph them too.


This is what is called enthusiasm and passion - bending your back to achieve the ideal frame for the ideal shot.



Our last stop was (totally unplanned as it wasn't even on the map we had) at Georges Michel Wine Estate where I picked up my best find of the day - Autumn Folly, a Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon dessert wine in which the fermentation process was interrupted by the addition of grape spirit from their own copper still - that tastes like something in between a light fruity dessert wine and an aged fortified wine.



I was sufficiently intoxicated to a higher state of happiness at the end of the wine tasting such that I was hyper all through the drive to Picton to catch the ferry back to Wellington, although I very promptly slipped into a comatose of dreams on the rough Cook Strait the moment we got a seat on board. At about 9.15pm, the roar from the Westpac Stadium where All Blacks were playing the Springboks greeted us as we sailed into Wellington Harbour; another hour's road journey to our next destination awaited us as we dragged our exhausted bodies off the bobbing vessel.