Sound as..
1st-12th February 2007

After a brilliant few days in Wellington we booked our ferry trip to the South Island. Having heard all sorts of horror stories about the crossing we were slightly nervy as we drove aboard the Blue Bridge Ferry. We needn't have worried though - the crossing was fine and we arrived in Picton feeling none the worse for our trip. In fact the last hour of the trip, cruising down the Marlborough Sounds was beautifully calm and we enjoyed some pretty impressive scenery.

We were reliably informed by our lonely planet guide that the north part of the south island is well worth spending some time - and they weren't wrong. We'd already booked a night in Nelson, but on arrival there decided to stay a bit longer as it was a good base to explore from. Amongst other things, we did a trip on a contraption called a Skywire - which was a ride across a 1.6km wire strung between two mountains, the first half of which is freefall - which surprisingly wasn't too scary, despite the strange feeling of the return journey, which began with a backwards freefall. On returning to the starting point the guy shouted down to us to ask if we enjoyed it... so we shouted back to say yes thanks, great fun.. etc etc.. then he asked us to do him a favour and press the green button in front of us... oh how trusting we are.. Dave pressed the button and suddenly off we sped again, freefall across the valley. Still, we didn't mind too much and enjoyed the second trip as much as the first. In fact my body must have thought I'd not had enough excitement for one day so, following Dave out of the mountaintop cafe, I chose a different door from him. Unfortunately for me I chose the one that wasn't actually a door, but a solid glass pane. Ouch. Spent the rest of the day with a throbbing face and Dave giggling like a loon while trying to be sympathetic each time he recalled the 'thunk' sound of me hitting the window.

A far less dangerous sport than the Skywire was our boat trip to the Abel Tasman National Park - we took a boat from Nelson that took us up the coast of the park, past loads of beautiful bays, mini islands and we even managed to spot some seals along the way. Stopped in Awaroa Beach for a lovely lunch and bumped into some germans we'd met back in Mangawhai, so lunched with them. After lunch we had about half a hour before our boat trip back so we quickly headed to the beach for a swim. Kicking off my shoes I had my first real unsettling insect experience. I came face to face with a squashed cicada. Not sure whether I'd trodden on it earlier and then transferred said squashed insect into my shoe, or it had been lurking in there when I put my shoe on, but whichever way it was I was certainly a bit queasy at the thought! If you don't know how ugly these insects are, feel free to do a google-image search and then I'm sure you'll understand my pain. I also took a picture which you'll be able to enjoy on our flickr site, should you feel the urge.

Finally managed to persuade Dave and his sprained ankle to do some walking so he suggested a gentle two day hike along part of the Queen Charlotte track (the whole track should take 5 days). The first day was only 5 km but was a very tough steep uphill followed by an equally tough steep downhill, but we were rewarded at the end of our first day with throwing ourselves off the jetty at Resolution Bay where we stayed the night in a little wooden cabin with no electricity and only a friendly chicken and a bottle of wine for company. We really enjoyed the novelty of the chicken that kept wandering in while we were cooking dinner but then it pooped on the floor and spoilt things for itself. Luckily for the chicken we decided against including it in our carbonara. I also had to quickly get over my arachnophobia as a lot of eight-legged visitors had taken up residence in our cabin with us. With no electricity and no communication with the outside world we managed to entertain ourselves by playing cards and charades (Dave impressing himself with his own interpretation of "My Left Foot"). The second day was a much easier 10km walk to Endeavour Inlet. This walk was nice and flat with plenty of lookout points, and the night's accommodation was much more luxurious, with a bar, restaurant and proper electricity! These luxuries were wasted on us as, totally exhausted, we were in bed just before the sun! Next day we were up bright and early for our boat pickup and had a fab trip back, seeing some rare hectors dolphins on the way. We didn't realise how lucky we were to see them until the people sharing our accommodation with us that night told us they'd paid that day to go out on a trip specifically to look for them and hadn't seen any. We resisted any childish urge we had to point and laugh and shout "sucker!" at them...

All that walking was enough healthy activity for us... next stop Marlborough Wine Festival!
Quite frankly it was just a posh excuse for a booze-up, and an expensive one at that, but we had a really good time sampling all the wines and enjoying the live music. We couldn't tell you which wines were the best, but I'm sure they were all lovely. My highlight of the day was catching the lady at one stall at the right time and getting more than the taster measure of bubbly than I paid for. Dave's was sweet-talking the Deer Farm ladies into a bonus venison sausage.

Much though we'd have loved to have spent the next few weeks in the wine regions there were some penguins further down south awaiting our visit, so we had to drag ourselves away...