Early start this morning, as we got up in the dark, and were shuttled with our luggage in the drizzle to the dock. There we boarded an enormous ferry, the largest I’ve ever been on , I believe. It even had an escalator inside.
The two main islands of New Zealand look so close on a globe or world map. It takes over three hours to traverse the Cook Straight between the Tasman Sea and the South Pacific. There were some large swells, given the weather. I swallowed a single “less drowsy making” Dramamine. I was drowsy for the rest of the day.
At a cute cafe called Gusto we had a nice lunch. The native mussel is green lipped and very large.
The North Island of New Zealand was formed from volcanoes. The South Island is continental, meaning it was part of Gonwanaland and attached to Australia. They have some similar vegetation, but also look quite different. Picton is a small town with a nice harbor and serves as a gateway, by boat, to the Marlborough Sounds, and we especially expolore Queen Charlotte Sound, the large sheltered body of water that the ferry navigated through after leaving the straight. This area was visited by Captain Cook who landed in Endeavour Inlet.
The land around Queen Charlotte Sound is only accessible by boat. We took “the mail boat,” to Kaipūpū Sanctuary which sits on a promontory, so is almost an island. The area has a predatory exclosure fence and is gradually being returned to having native vegetation and birds. As is the case everywhere here, excluding possum, especially, and rats, makes a huge difference in protecting the birds.
The views were beautiful. Green trees dropping down steep slopes to sparkling water:
My favorite stops were seeing nesting boxes of the wee penguins– alas, no birds, but nice to know they’re around– and a large Rimu tree. This is one of the most characteristic trees of New Zealand, but has largely been timbered out. It is illegal to fell one in the country, even on private land. They grow very, very slowly and this one may be 20 years old.
We had a quick change at the motel, and then headed to a lecture about the history of Endeavour Inlet. It was well known to the Māori and well settled by them. It was also visited by Captain Cook.
Dinner was wonderful– small courses of mussels, locally collected abalone, wild goat, salad and veggies. It was very creative and local.
At some point the Dramamine wore off and general fatigue after a long day took over, seamlessly. Good night’s sleep.
