we've arrived

DAY 1 Arrival

Maureen and I arrived in Wellington on our flights from Auckland and Christchurch, made it into town and to the Hotel. Wellington is very pretty, hilly with lots of houses covering the hills, all seem to be painted white! It's a mixture of modern and older buildings, with the city centre buildings in great nick.

Buffy and Wilma came to visit, and we went out for a walk to find somewhere to eat a meal. We chose The Bruhaus, largely because it was open, and had an enticing range of beers. We caught up with Buffy and Wilma's whirlwind couple of days through Wellington, and then got a pretty early night after our long day travelling. 

 

DAY 2 Wellington to Picton

Maree arrived in the middle of the night, so we were all five set to board our ferry at crack of dawn on Monday. Weather a bit cloudy but not cold, and a fine day was on the way. The ferry was pretty big (900 – odd passengers plus vehicles), and we secured a cozy spot in the back of the bar from which to base ourselves. Wilma was very busy checking out all the facilities of the ferry, plus madly snapping photographs of anything and everything to add to her tally so far of plants, buildings, manhole covers, fences, artworks and almost anything else. We spotted a Spotlight hiding amongst the buildings just over from the ferry, but luckily we were already on the ship!

The trip was surprisingly calm, and very picturesque. Leaving Wellington was really nice, with lots of rocks poking out of the water to keep the navigator on his toes, and the beautiful buildings on the hills giving us plenty to look at. But that was nothing compared to what was to come as we entered the Marlborough Sounds. The scenery was magnificent with steep hills seemingly ending right at the water's edge, and the water a lovely shade of blue.

There were lots of very lovely houses (with their own little boat ramps) and great hills behind them, and we seemed to arrive at Picton in no time. Picton is a very pretty little place as well, and we were quickly (or not) organised with our rent a bus and on our way to the motel to check in. Bad news – our unit was upstairs! We had to lug our cases up a flight of stairs to get to the room, (lift, what lift?) and then the three single beds were up another spiral staircase to boot. Needless to say all the cases stayed downstairs! We set off to explore the town – what a large number of cute shops and arty spaces on one main street. Very nice. Had lunch, very important, and visited both patchwork and bead shops, a wood gallery and several gallery/gift shops. All very nice, also wandered down to look at the foreshore, resting in a very nice park. A quiet night in, as we had had a late lunch, toast for tea, and hauled ourselves up the stairs to bed!

 

This is the scenery on the beautiful Queen Charlotte Sound taken from the ferry from Wellington to Picton.