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Published: October 29th 2007
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Picton
View from ferry of Picton Hello All!
We are now in the South Island. We spent a night in Picton after the ferry crossing, which was very bumpy as we crossed the Cook Straight. But once into the Islands it was incredible. The mountains are what can only described as majestic and the sea was almost turquoise. Picton is a lovely quiet little town, not what you would expect for a main port. The girls had a play at the playground and we tried not to get blown away.
The next day we went to Blenheim. Which is the heart of wine country. Apparently it is one of the sunniest places in New Zealand and after a few days of travelling around the area I can believe it. We found another lovely motel, and went to a great ‘Café’ for lunch… which cost more than we have spent on most of our meals so far just for omelettes… sorry Phoebe no pudding this time. Again Blenheim is a quiet town (Although I think it is classed as a city as it stretches for miles). It is surrounded by vineyards, and is almost like California (without the fires that is).
We kept it quiet the following day
Picton
View of Picton from the ferry as the girls were worn out and Ellie had a 4 hour long nap… so we just stayed at our Motel. It is run by an English ex-farmer, who has been here for 8/9 years after giving up on the UK due to the state off farming…. He loves it here and has only been back to UK once and hated it….. We went for a drive down the East Coast but after going about 100Km and finding nothing but lots of wiggly roads and rain. We returned to Blenheim, where the rain stopped as soon as you reach the town.
We went to a great little restaurant in the evening. Russ had Venison, I had homemade beetroot pasta and the girls macaroni… and yes we did have pudding…. The girls had enormous ‘kids’ ice creams, I had the biggest piece of fresh lemon meringue pie, and Russ’s face was a picture when his little pot of crumble came out….. But he did finish the girls ice creams as the home made butterscotch was too rich for them. While we ate we were ‘entertained’ by a man playing on the keyboard and his Wife playing bongo’s and singing behind us….
He was very ‘Smooth’ and would have given Errol Flynn a run for his money but it was bordering on Senior Coconut at time’s, Russ thought it was Vic Reeves doing his club style singing….. It kept us amused anyway……
Next day we drove to Golden bay, which is nearly the top of the South Island. On the way we stopped in Nelson as I wanted to see the Lord of the Ring’s, ring. It was made for the film by Jens Hansen, He made 15 different designs for Peter Jackson’s art direction team, and they have the original prototype in he shop. From this they made 40 more versions including one with a diameter of 8” for the special effects. I went in the shop while Russ parked. They had some LOTR rings in a cabinet,…. Thinking that was it, I tried to round up the girls to go, as I did the lady in the shop started talking to us…. I said I had come to see ‘The Ring’ and she asked me over to the counter and got a small box out and handed me the original prototype…. I know it’s crap but I was star struck
by this lump of gold. It is surprisingly heavy, but beautiful. When Russ came in she showed us one of the larger special effects rings which is made from steel and gold plated. I said to Russ what’s the chance of me having a silver ring…. And he actually got his wallet out!!! So I am now the very proud owner of my very own replica LOTR ring…..
Anyway enough off that… Nelson seems a great place full of arty shops and galleries. I would like to have seen more but we were short on time, which is shame, as so far it’s the first NZ city I liked…
We then drove up the coast to Takaka at Golden Bay. The road takes you up into the clouds at Takaka hill, Another LOTR location site. It is amazing up there and it was a shame the weather was so miserable, as I would have liked to have walked to Harwood’s Hole which is a 15m wide ‘Tomo‘. There are also a number of ‘Sinkholes.’ And the area is covered with lumps of marble. On the way down the mountains into Takaka we followed a very cool bus. It had
a small shed on the back as a second storey, with a little balcony with window boxes of herbs, I tried to get photos as we over took the driver, but failed. Luckily as we got into Takaka and stopped to let the girls use the loo, the bus came past so I got a great pic….
We then tried to find a beach but the weather closed in on us and by the time we got to a beach where we could stop it was raining and too cold. So we drove back to Nelson, trying to avoid the mutant canary/sparrows……
We tried to stop at ‘The World of Wearable Art and Classic Car Museum’ unfortunately by the time we got there it was shutting in half an hour and as it was gonna cost us $44.00 to get in we didn’t go in. We had a brief look in the shop, which for some reason has a Trotter Independent Traders Reliant Robin on display. Again I wish we had had more time and been able to go in.
We returned to Blenheim and again as soon as we got into the area the rain stopped and the
Funky Bus
Funky 2 storey bus!!! sun came out… It really is quiet strange you can almost see the line where the clouds stop as if there’s some strange force field stopping them at the Blenheim.
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Dick
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Re Funky Bus
Yeh I've seen some buses in London like that, I think they call them 'double deckers' or something like that anyway.....