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Published: December 3rd 2013
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So off to the South Island today. Everyone keeps telling us that this is the beautiful one of the two but I am finding it hard to believe that it can trump what we have already seen. We are taking the ferry between the two islands as the journey is supposed to be spectacular as it travels through the Marlborough sound. We had a bit of a worry earlier in the trip when Ian got an email saying that the propellor had fallen off one of the ferries and journeys were being rearranged! Luckily for us ours was just delayed an hour.
Lots of people at the ferry port that we saw on the train (in fact we also saw some in the botanical gardens and the museum so we are obviously on the tourist route!). We had the normal scurry for seats, changing position a couple of times till Ian found a spot in the lookout which was a glass enclosed area with great views. The journey takes 3 and a half hours and the first half is across the open Tasman sea so I wasn't too keen on being outside. So nothing to report for the first half.
Front loader
How safe is this? Boat had just been refurnished ( it used to be the spirit of Cherbourg according to our taxi driver) so was very comfortable.
And then we started to go through the sound! As we were facing backward you didn't see it coming up on you. It just hit you! We made a run for outside and managed to get a spot close to the funnel with a great view of both sides of the channel.
I am running out of superlatives to describe some of this scenery. Suddenly all around you are walls of mountains, trees and ferns coming straight out of the water. It made the boat feel much smaller than it had felt before, as they towered above you as you chugged through the inlet. There was the occasional dolphin and seal swimming around the boat. It was truly magical, the only word that I feel describes it properly.
We stood there for about an hour and a half just staring, until we landed at Picton. That was pretty amazing too as the boat backed into a space which was pretty tight on both sides !
Once we disembarked we grabbed luggage, rental car
and a quick toastie and we were on our way to Nelson. One thing we haven't grabbed is a satnav as Ian believes there is only one road in New Zealand. So I'm in charge of navigation with the free map from the rental company! And we are planning to drive a lot this final week, possibly too much! To help you get a picture I have added kms per day to the overall title.
So our first decision was NOT to follow the signs to Nelson but to use the road I could see on the map that appeared far more direct (remember return trip to auckland?). Having gone around picton twice we realised it was the route described as 'scenic route to havelock'. And boy was it scenic, it made you gasp as you turned every corner. However there were SO many corners Ian started to feel travel sick and he was driving! Ian described it as a 50kms slalom course, it appeared as though there were never any straight bits. We thought progress on the train was slow! We've never been on such a twisty road and it made us realise how slow progress can be
if you travel on this type of road. So the day we have to do over 500km to the glacier should be a Herculean feat!
We eventually made it to Nelson and out hotel which as luck would have it was on the main road into the town so easily found. It was called a Sails. The owner was very helpful and told us about all sorts; restaurants, wine tours, art centres etc before we even checked in. But our number one priority was to get our washing done as this has been the longest time and we were starting to get desperate. This resort has a separate laundry so we had to put it on and leave. So while I washed we watched Dirty Harry and Love Story on the classics movie channel.
Finally we could get dressed and make it out to dinner,using our hosts (and trip advisers) recommendation. It was a restaurant called Hopgoods and it well deserved its recommendation. We both had the fish of the day, red snapper, and Ian voted it the best fish he had had all holiday. For me it was up there with the blue cod I had in
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Also saw dolphins and seals but you can't in this photo Sydney. It helped that Ian picked a lovely dry Riesling made in Nelson itself. If only we could remember the name!!!!
We decided that we would go upto the national park tomorrow so a few emails as we had internet and off to bed
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tom
non-member comment
wellington
Hi to you both You seem to be having some wonderful experiences except for the gallstones episode.hope ian doesn't have any more attacks.you didn't mention anything about the earthquake they had.are there any signs of the clean up operations they have undertaken. The weather seems to be a little better where you are now. Your blog is like a travelog and will be a great reminder when you get back however at my speed of typing i cannot see me doing one when we go to India. Love t and j