Tramping, sun, and lots of wine!
We were welcomed into the South Island with gorgeous sunshine, and have pretty good weather ever since - which has been a welcome change since our few days spent in windy Wellington! We’re making the most of it though as we’re told that we’re likely to be rained on a lot while travelling down the West coast over the next few weeks.
We arrived in Picton last Friday, and spent a day wandering around and getting our bearings before heading out on the Queen Charlotte Track on Sunday. Due to the fact that we’re trying to see too much in such a short space of time , we only had chance to do one day’s worth of the track, which usually takes people three or four days to walk the whole length of it. So, we took a water taxi to the start of the route, which was a beautiful journey first thing in the morning, all the way up Queen Charlotte Sound, only stopping to play with a school of dolphins on our way. The boat dropped us off at Ship Cove, and we headed back along the track towards Furneaux Lodge. The track started off pretty steep, but the views were so good that we were able to take plenty of breathers along the way with the excuse of ‘taking in the view’ or playing with the camera!
Anyway, in true Thurston style we finished the walk far too quickly, but that just meant we had plenty of time for a long lunch stop, where a family of Wekas (a native flightless bird) helped themselves to half our food.
We’ve since spent a night in Blenheim, and then two nights in Renwick, while we took in some more sights, enjoyed the sun, and explored the wineries. Yesterday we hired a couple of bikes from the hostel we were staying at, and set out with big plans of seeing 8-10 wineries in the area. By lunchtime we had made it to 4, and we had to stop and have something to eat to soak up the wine at the 5th. By the time we got to our 6th neither of us could face another glass of wine so we headed back to the hostel instead! Again we saw more beautiful scenery, met some lovely people, tasted some amazing wine, and even managed to get Giles drinking the white stuff
We’re in Nelson today, on our way to Abel Tasman for our kayaking trip tomorrow. More stories and photos when we return…
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