The Alex & The Eleanor + 1

Sunday Dec. 30 2007
Wellington to Picton/Portage
Sunny and warm

Guess its because it is a Sunday or everyone is on holiday or who knows why, but Wellington is still rather empty, but no trouble cause that just means its much easier drive to the ferry terminal where we drop off the car (after some wrangling to get all the Stuff we have accumulated into our proper bags) and wait to board the ferry. Poor Alex, I made him leave quite early because I had no idea how this was going to work – its rather a case like the ‘traffic’ yesterday, it might be busy and crowed for Kiwi’s but it seems quite empty to me. The ferry was quite large, even has a movie theatre, though we didn’t find out what was playing – there is something about the movement of a boat and a movie that don’t sound like a good idea, and besides, its suppose to be a stunning trip. We make our way up to the top observation deck outside seats and enjoy the sun. Its still not terribly warm, but warmer, I suppose everything is relative. As we pull out of Wellington the view back of the city is quite pretty, as is all the harbor around, but then we get out into the Cook Straight and the wind really picks up, as does the spray, though I really don’t understand that as we are like 4 or 5 stories up. But I layer up and hunker down besides some railing which blocks a lot of the wind and read some – I don’t get to be out on boats much and I like it! A little wind isn’t going to drive me inside. Its not a long crossing though, and once we reach the sounds on the south island, the deck fills up again with people enjoying the views, and I am glad we lasted outside and landed some of the best spots. We dock at Picton, which is a tiny tiny town, and kill an hour waiting for the water shuttle to take us to our hotel. We get on a much smaller boat, but still snag outside seats – such a perfect day! and speed across the Sound, making a couple stops to drop other folks off. I am quite happy to enjoy the scenery though, it’s like Silver Lake on crack – little cottages (and giant million dollar cottages) set amongst the forest that climbs straight up behind them, it looks utterly rustic, but is quite built up –the infastructure is well hidden. We finally get dropped off and then get into a van that takes us over the spit of land to the other side, where our hotel is. You can actually drive here from Picton, but instead of what would be a 15 min. boat ride direct, it’s a 60km drive down very narrow twisty roads. Three cheers for the water shuttle! We arrive at our hotel and am I am suddenly very glad I am allergic to cats (all the good B&B’s in Picton have cats according to our travel agent, so we went over to Portage instead) It’s the same green hillsides, but the water on this side is so blue green it reminds me of the bay in Bora Bora. We check in and wader around a bit trying to decide how to spend the rest of the afternoon, its after 4 but since it doesn’t get dark till 9:30 or so, we have time to kill. We go down to the water, and though its not so cold as at Cape Kidnappers, its filled with jellyfish, and though I don’t think they are poisonous, since lots of other folks are swimming, they are rather creepy. Well then, I guess we will wander a bit on the Queen Charlotte Track, which is a 71km walking path along this peninsula, it is suppose to be one of the great walks in NZ, and I can see why with the weather and the views, but sadly we did not have the time to walk to the whole thing – a couple kilometers though, that sounds good. We randomly decided to go north, and climed and climbed and climbed. Or so it seemed, I am sure it wasn’t that bad, it just seemed it – I think without a summit or set end point it’s a bit harder, and I think the next “stop” was about 8 hours away. We were rewarded with some great views looking over the Sounds though, and as always a much easier walk back. And a feeling that we earned a much needed shower and dinner. We ate at the nicer looking of the 2 restaurants (it’s a cool hotel, everything from fairly deluxe rooms to backpackers dorms) after enjoying the last of the sun on the deck with a beer. I had some scallops and taro tortellini to start (I think it was taro, it was too purple to be purple potatoes, but it tasted like a cross between taro and potatoes) and a ‘salmon three ways’ appetizer for my main. The scallops were quite nice, they were the smaller ones which I am generally not a fan of. And the salmon was ok, there was no description of what the 3 ways were though, so I can’t tell you which one I liked best. And after that we had a very early night, it was still light outside! But we were quite exhausted between the sun and water and the hike(let).