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Published: April 30th 2011
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The rest of Queen Charlotte Drive has some spectacular scenery and every turn around the windy roads brings you to a different view and a different bay. Most of the little bays are private and there are between 1 and 6 houses each with their private access to the house and the beach, no visitors can get down to the actual beaches. When we arrived in Picton the Bluebridge ferry was just coming into port so we stopped on the hill to watch it for a bit. It kind of gives a bit of perspective about how big the sounds are when you see the ferry coming and it gets dwarfed by the surroundings!!
We stopped in Picton to get some cash and then headed to a campsite about 3 mins drive from the centre. Picton is surprisingly small considering it takes all the ferry traffic between the two islands. It feels like a quiet seaside town rather than a big port. We headed to the campsite to get a shower and do some washing before deciding what to do next. We still hadn’t decided if we were going to go down to Blenheim or just straight across on the
ferry but as we were yet to book the ferry we decided to head down to Blenheim and the top of the East coast for a couple of days before booking to go over on the ferry. I’d also read about Lake Grassmere. It is an artificial lake filled with sea water and then evaporated to harvest the salt, but at times it looks pink and purple so I wanted to go see it! We found a DOC site close by there so we headed straight for it. The lakes were beautiful but unfortunately there wasn’t anywhere to stop and get a good look at them. For one there was roadwork’s going on, on the surrounding roads and second there were hills in the way so you only caught glimpses of them!! We didn’t want to head down to the actual works so headed straight to the campsite. The campsite was very basic and very windy. We walked along the really long beach and found loads of shells including some Paua shells which Mark was really happy about.
The next morning we headed up the East coast a bit towards Rarangi. There are a series of DOC sites at
Rarangi and Whites bay, then further up the road at Robin Hood Bay so we were hoping to stop at some of these for a couple of nights. We stopped at Rarangi and walked over the hill to a little cove there in order to fish off the point. Unfortunately there was another couple who got there before us and so we couldn’t get where we wanted. The only fish caught in the couple of hours we were there was a baby shark!! So we packed up and headed onto Whites Bay for lunch. Whites Bay is a lovely DOC sites with great sheltered bay areas and a large beach. It also has a lifesaving club there so the facilities are a little better than others we‘ve seen. But we decided to head on further down the road to Robin Hood bay as this site sounded really nice. However, as soon as we started out from Whites Bay the road turned to a dusty gravel and was extremely steep and windy so after a couple of turns and we realised the hill just kept on going we turned Mitsy around and headed back to Rarangi for another go at fishing
and to stay there for the night. The weather turned later that night and it was bad wind and rain all evening meaning it was cold cheese sandwiches for us as it was too windy to cook!! The following morning produced a beautiful sunrise and Mark was up fishing again but with no luck. We decided to head back to Picton via Blenheim and book the ferry on the way. Arriving back in Picton we headed to one of the fishing spots we had been told about. There was a local fishing there so we were a little more hopeful of catching something!! We were spinning on the beach but unfortunately my line snapped and this distracted Mark who got his line caught - so two spinners lost in a matter of minutes of each other!! We gave up at that point and headed into town! We stayed at the same campsite we had used before as they were the cheapest around and as we were booked on the ferry the following day needed somewhere close.
In the morning we checked out and walked around Picton centre and water front. it’s a lovely quiet place with nice green area
and walkway along the foreshore and is meant to be safe for swimming - not sure I would though due to the amount of Jellyfish that were in the water! We are just killing time before we get on the ferry really, so as soon as it’s time we are going to book onto the ferry and join the queue of cars and vans waiting to get on. Luckily it’s a nice sunny day so we are hoping for a nice smooth crossing!
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Kath
non-member comment
Seagull!
Swan says bring back a seagull. I couldn't decide if it was intended as a friend or lunch :)