Continuing northwards I made my way to Picton, right on the Marlborough Sounds. On arrival I was met with sunshine and a nice seaside town and proceded to sunbathe and swim in the sea. All was looking well for my walk along some of the Qyeen Charlotte Track the next day. What I was actually faced with was an awful lot of low cloud. Reminiscent of failing to see Mt Kinabalu, unable to see dolphins at Akaroa, not allowed to kayak Mt Cook etc etc.
However, after more dolphins and a boat ride with some mentalists who are walking the entirety of New Zealand (one was just starting his third pair of shoes after completing the North Island) I got dropped off at a Motuara Island for 90 minutes. This is one of a number of islands where they have worked and continue to work hard to eliminate all the introduced mammals (there is only one native NZ mammal, a type of bat) so that native plants and birds can flourish. Motuara Island makes a very good case for this, there were lots of Little Penguins in their nesting boxes looking quite unattractive in between feather stages, and I saw a bell bird, masses of saddlebacks, a grey warbler and a few grey robins. I also saw some wetas, but they're less attractive. I even managed to get some pictures of the saddlebacks. You don't need to be in NZ very long to hear an awful lot of conservation preaching and to get really quite excited about native birds. As I spotted them on my own this was probably at least as exciting as the whale but I think you probably had to be there... After all this excitement, three of us were waiting to be picked up and a Little Penguin (who should really have been asleep) just waddled out right in front of us! Then a boat load of about 40 people arrived and somewhat ruined it all...
I then caught the boat briefly across the water and walked along some of the track. There was noticeably less bird song and bird life, other than wekas, which are native and steal things (!). Still very much clouded over but the cloud had lifted a bit so there were some good views of the sound.
From Picton I headed to Nelson. Nelson is quite a cool town, it is virtually entirely surrounded by National Parks and has a lot of nice older houses and quite a funky modern cathedral. It is full of streets named after Trafalgar related people/ships. It is also the geographical centre of New Zealand. Unfortunately I didn't have time to go to all the surrounding National Parks, but I did go to Abel Tasman. It was beautiful weather and entirely lived up to the hype. I did some kayaking along the coast which is bright green with masses and masses of small beaches (fortunately quite empty as the summer holidays have finished) and the most ridiculous greeny turquoise clear water. I kayaked, did a small walk and sat/swam at the beach. I could not get over how like the postcards it looked!
From there I spent a day on buses and a ferry (more dolphins) to Wellington and a night on a bus to Auckland. Having spent the whole trip thinking Kiwis must be HORRIFIED at the rudeness of our bus drivers when they come to the UK compared to in NZ, this last bus journey was driven by the grumpiest, rudest bus driver I've ever met! I'm now using up my New Zealand coins in Auckland airport about to head to Fiji!
Photos to come, internet access a bit limited on islands in Fiji...
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