Marlborough

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After a 3 hour ferry journey from Wellington to Picton on the South Island we spent a week in the Marlborough region, exploring the town of Picton, wine tasting in the Blenheim wineries and walking the Queen Charlotte Track around the Marlborough Sounds. Although Picton is a major port town for the ferries between the two islands it isn't all that busy and has retained a small town charm with a few cafes, bars and restaurants and the picturesque harbour where boat trips can take you around the Marlborough Sounds, a spectacular area of sounds, islands, and peninsulas formed from ocean-flooded river valleys and lined with forests.

From Picton we took a full day wine tasting trip to nearby Blenheim, which has the highest number of sunshine hours in New Zealand and in recent years has grown to become the centre of the country's wine industry. We visited seven wineries including Cloudy Bay and we tried several wines at each, mainly sauvingnon blancs, pinot noirs, pinot gris and chardonnays, so at the end of the day we were a little worse for wear and didn't feel like doing much the next day, so we just wandered around Blenheim feeling sorry for ourselves!

We decided to walk the Queen Charlotte Track, a 71 km walk around the Sounds from Ship Cove to Anakiwa. You don't have to walk the whole thing as you can arrange for water taxis to pick you up at various points, which allows you to do part of it by boat and part by foot. We were taken by boat from Picton to Ship Cove and spent four days on the track, staying at lodges and hotels along the way (Rachael says she is a flash-packer rather than a backpacker and refuses to stay in hostels), but we only walked for three days as it bucketed down with rain on one day and we had to take a water taxi to our next hotel. The boat took us past a salmon farm and we saw a couple of friendly dolphins which followed the boat and performed in the water for us. While we were walking it seemed like we had the whole track to ourselves - we met almost nobody the whole time except for a farmer and his dog on a small tractor, and some crazy person running. There were toilets along the way, but they were really not pleasant and Rachael couldn't bring herself to use them! There was nowhere between each stop to get any food, except for one ramshackle place just off the track that claimed to be a cafe but was rather limited in its menu. The conversation went something like this:

Cafe owner: Hi there!
Rachael: Hi, can we order some food please?
Cafe owner: Sure, we have muffins!
Paul: Anything else?
Cafe owner: Well, I could get you some muffins!
Rachael: Any sandwiches?
Cafe owner: No, but we have some great muffins!
Paul: Is there anywhere else to buy food?
Cafe owner: No, you should have brought a pack lunch, but how about some muffins?
Rachael: You have nothing else at all?
Cafe owner: Well let me see... we do have some muffins!

In the end we opted for the muffins, and had to concede that they were particularly good and contained fresh juicy blueberries. But we made up for the lack of daytime sustenance each evening by refuelling with huge meals and good wine.

The views along the track were amazing as you can see from the photos, even though these don't do justice to the beauty of the place. Apart from the one rainy day the weather was great.

We returned to Picton where Rachael left on a tiny plane for Wellington to spend a few days finishing at university and I headed south to Kaikoura to see some whales!

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Comments

[Jamie Thompson]

Thank you
I stumbled across this site while I was doing a search of Resolution Bay. My family holidayed there in the 1950's and even now, at my ripe 'old age' of 53 I remember the peace, beauty, tranquility and pleasure of that vacation as if it were yesterday. I believe the Marlborough Sounds are one of the most beautiful places on this earth. Thankyou for posting your photos and helping me recall that time from lomg ago.