Wellington to Nelson via Picton
The start of our second week in the Kea motorhome started bright & early with a short drive to the dockside through a maze of roads twizzled around like spaghetti. Sat at harbour side waiting to embark gave us the chance to view our fellow passengers; a mix of lorries & rental vehicles really & all nationalities, though it has to be said that there were a lot of what we supposed to be Japanese, busy taking photos of themselves in a variety of posses.
The ferry set sail at 9.25am, leaving the sheltered harbour of Wellington & headed out into the notorious Cook Strait, which l guess could be a bit like the North Sea on a bad day, but in our case more like a Mill Pond with a strong tide race.
The weather improved as the journey progressed. Brilliantly blue sky, cool blue waters and the temperature rising substantially. The scenery was pretty dramatic too. Once the ship had headed into Queen Charlotte's Sound, everybody on board rushed on deck, cameras poised, VCRs at the ready. Forest covered slopes reaching down to the shoreline, small coves & bays & all the while the amazingly coloured sea taking us onward towards Picton.
As we neared our destination, a sail boat would pass us or a homestead reached only by sea would appear on the shoreline, but civilisation finally caught up with us in the form of reggatta of small dinghies, a sea plane racing down the bay slowly reaching take off speed & finally a rather large cruise ship that completed dwarfed everything in the vicinity.
Disembarkation went smoothly & turned right out of the port heading along the narrow, twisty, fantastically scenic Queen Charlotte's Drive. Do not miss this drive, the roads are exceptionally quiet, every corner provides another photo opportunity - rugged green hills, unspoilt coves, an abundance of wildflowers, & ok there are bends, a lot of bends if you've driven in the Alps this is nothing.
Whenever we drove more open farm land, we noted that this was given over to industrial scale dairy farming & we began to see the first of the large, [& by large l mean over 400 cows], herds of cattle.
Driving through the fishing town of Havelock, look out for the Mussel Pot, a fish restaurant dripping with large, green, plastic mussels from, well, everywhere.
The countryside here on South Island was already noticeably different from North Island, the roads almost deserted & towns & settlements few & far between, the exception being that of Nelson where we put down camp for the night at the Matai Valley Motorcamp. A real character of a place set amongst the tall pine trees close to the Matai River, home to some really weird & unique motorhome conversions l have as yet to come across. The facilities included washing, kitchens, showers etc & a very unusual 'dump' station that was not really user friendly. The site offered wifi which you had to pay for, the cheapest way we quickly discovered was to pay for 24 hours which gave you ample time to surf / skype / facetime.
Total mileage = 70 miles
Hello Guys
ReplyDeleteOver the years and decades there are many things that evolve, but few quite as rapid as within the motorsport arena. The high octane adrenaline pumping sound and smell of a highly tuned motor car racing around a purpose built race track has an amazing affect on the drivers, mechanics, spectators, and everyone else that is involved. There are many reasons the sport of formula one racing has amassed such a widespread audience in the last few years...See more at-location de camping-car nouvelle zelande
Thanks