Wellington, 1

We got into Windy Welly about noon on Sunday, debarked, and quickly made our way to the Harbour City Motor Inn, in Te Aro, 6-8 blocks from most everything in Welly's centre ville. We're here for a few days, almost a week, so we took our time moving into our studio room and then went for a long, exploratory walk, mostly along nearby Cuba St., Wellington's funky district.

Approaching the harbor

Downtown Wellington from the central harbor

Much of Cuba St. is pretty old (by NZ standards) but there
is also a bit of Art Deco

Much of the outdoor sculpture in Wellington--and there is
much of it--has to do either with water or with wind;
presently we wish rather more of it had to do with warmth
and sun

Ditto

Of course, with all the charm and interest of old buildings comes a warning

Sic transit, Gloria...once home of the Bank of New Zealand, now Home of the Whopper

Inventive, too

Fidel's, on Cuba St; actually, Cuba St. was named after a ship, not a country; Cuba
Libre! anyhow

One of the better seafood markets around...I had the fish and chips one night later in
the week

E Noho Ra, South Island

The Cook Strait ferry afforded still another look at the Marlborough Sound country and at some the South Island's wild coast. For those keeping score at home, we rode aboard Bluebridge's MV Straitsman, a relatively new ship that commenced service only in 2011. The swells were 6-8 feet in my expert nautical estimation, really a calm, mostly blue day, but the ship fairly skipped, bounced, and lurched its way to Wellington harbor. I did a lot of walking on the deck, keeping my eye on the horizon. Vicki is apparently impervious to such matters and spent the three hours snacking and reading at LOTR.

Leaving Picton

Isolated living out on the Sound

Salmon farm

End of the road

Quite a narrow chute the ferries sail through

Thus

New Zealand's two big islands form an 800-mile barrierbetween the Tasman Sea
and the Pacific, with the 20-mile wide Cook Strait the only outlet for currents,
lunar tides, meteorological tides, etc; that is, a lot of water pours through Cook
Strait; underwater cameras show the Strait's bottom is absolutely clean of debris

Lashing, smashing, bashing, crashing...

Thus

Finally, we are in the Strait, watching the parade of ferries against the backdrop
of the North Island

Rarangi/White Bay/Picton

Ready to move on, Vicki had changed our ferry reservations to March 2, and we drove from Kaikoura, via Rarangi, to Picton, for our last couple days on the South Island.

White Bay; or possibly some other bay

Monkey Cove; or ditto

Exploring a sea arch at yet another beach/cove whose name I've lost

Thus

Thus

And thus

Still in wine country, just a few hundred meters from the beach

We spent our last couple nights in a cabin at Alexander's Motorcamp in Picton,
washing, cleaning, blogging, exploring Picton's second-hand shops, etc.

Kaikoura

Earlier we thought we might end our 7 weeks on the South Island with another tramp, the Queen Charlotte track, a scenic ridge-walk in the Sounds. Another chance to drop a few pounds, see some sights, add more notches to our hiking sticks. Besides, we figured, on the northeast side of the island, the sand flies wouldn't be so onerous. As it turned out, we encountered sand flies all over the Sounds area and even on the east coast, and hiking on the North Island started looking more and more attractive. So we eschewed Queen Charlotte, drove across some dry California-like grassy hills, and then down the beautiful east coast--not as dramatic as the west, but with no less charm--as far as Kaikoura and environs. When we were in Christchurch in January, we eschewed Kaikoura. Too touristy-sounding, and we weren't interested in the whale-watching voyages there. As it is turned out, Kaikoura turned out to be quite nice, we thought, and watching other animal activities, seals and porpoises, turned out to be some of the more memorable activities. I'll have videos of these in due course.

Just north of Kaikoura is the Ohau Point Seal Colony; most
we have seen anywhere, and active too, not just crashing on
the rocks

Pup pool

Coast around Kaikoura

You've got to like a place that lines its beach boulevard with
Norfolk Island pines; big, mature, beautiful ones

A bit of Art Deco, too

15-20k down the coast, looking at the scenery

Back toward Kaikoura, a porpoise run...I video'd 3 or so
minutes, soon to appear on my YouTube channel

Our campsite at the Alpine Pacific Holiday Park

Backyard view

Kaikoura pebble beach

Cloudy Bay

New Zealand is famous world-wide for its young wine industry, which started out just a generation ago with sauvignon blancs from the Marlborough region but which now is branching out all over and with most all the basic wine types. Cloudy Bay was the first New Zealand winery to garner world acclaim, and it is still very highly prized. ($38 a bottle at the supermercado). We drove across much of the region, nestled in around Blenheim and Renwick, and stopped for a look and a taste of Cloudy Bay.

There aren't too many chateaux in New Zealand (nor castles,
nor cathedrals), but most of the wineries have attractive
reception and visitor centers; here is Cloudy Bay's, perhaps
a bit on the understated side

Terrace and grounds

We found the accoutrements and furnishings
of most interest

Bottle made into hurricane lamp

Cheese board made from wine barrel

Next year's release

Up closer to show the scary sand fly wall ornaments (so
they seemed to me)

We tried the current 2013 sauvignon blanc, the 2010 Te
Koko (also an SB), and a 2011 chardonnay; I actually liked
the Te Koko--softness with complexity--was not all that
impressed with the chardonnay, and disliked the sauvignon
blanc, with its harsh tones of grapefruit [sic!] and lime [sic!!];
I left wondering what meal I'd pair the sauvignon blanc with
and glad I hadn't bought a bottle before tasting; I guess I'm
just an Old World wine guy who has drunk too much 2$
Chuck

French Pass

The next morning we decamped and drove off, as planned, in the direction of French Pass. All this is still on the mainland, so to speak, but it is towards the top of the Sounds area, before you get to some smaller islands. The roads beyond Elaine Bay are all gravel, pretty good gravel nonetheless, with relatively little traffic, and some great vistas.

Incipient traffic cone tree?

After Memorial Picnic Bench (!), the vistas open up...

Thus

At this, um, rural mailbox, we mailed a post card to our
grand-daughter Penelope; we've mailed 4 or 5 so far, only one
of which has gotten through, and it was held up for weeks
in Brunei...

From the hamlet of French Pass, looking toward neighboring
D'Urville Island

Its not quite the end of the road

We took a brief walk to see the Pass itself; saw this weka

French Pass

Up closer

A bit of a maelstrom, as we saw in Norway

Scenery on the way back to Elaine Bay

Grim reminder department: you really don't have a lot of
traction on gravel roads

They were very, very lucky