In the morning we left Nelson. It was rather sad to say goodbye to the Gentleman Friend’s mother, she is in a place second only to my own mother for me. She was flying to Auckland later that morning and then on homewards to London afterwards.
(I am writing this sitting on a jetty, watching a stingray fly through clear green water around me.)
The bus journey was pretty but tiresome, in particular the seat belts were profoundly uncomfortable so that all the law-abiding NZers and even the GF eventually unclasped them. We passed through very narrow valleys, green and heavily wooded, and then into fields. Havelock, a pretty little marina town, and then Blenheim where we are to return later in the week which was much more of a working agricultural town serving the vineyards around it, with large warehouses selling farming equipment and building supplies, and only a Pizza Hut and a cornershop for food so far as I could tell.
The final bit of the drive was pretty again, past wetlands with dead trees listing over the muddy water. The road then opened up to Picton, set amidst hills as the gateway to the sounds.
Picton was much prettier than I had been led to believe and though the ferry port was not too pleasant, it had the usual NZ tidiness and lack of people/clutter. We found our way to the water taxi office where we left our bags after a brief conversation with a pleasant and friendly but aloof young man who confirmed, despite his best efforts, that we were booked for a water taxi at 4.
We then wandered off for lunch, arriving at Gusto, a small cafe for an adequate if not exemplary lunch. Then we went for a walk; I vetoed the walk up the hill and instead we went around the shore, passing a small marina and then along the cliffs down a pleasantly green path leading to beaches. We passed several stoat traps along the way, and clearly one or two had caught their stoats.
The sea opening up was pretty – it was warm and sunny now, though the air was still cool, and green-blue sparkled under a clear sky. In the sounds were what appeared to be close wooded islands, it reminded me very much of Komodo, or at least a temperate version of it.
We went to the supermarket as we’d been told by our hosts we should bring all the food we need for breakfast and lunch (very peculiar to my Pakistani ears, but there it is) as well as cornflakes for the ducklings. We bought our supplies and I stopped along the way to purchase a very expensive pair of bathroom slippers (much needed! but expensive) and to my secret shame opted for something made by Crocs rather than Bata or the like. But they were much nicer, and lighter and hopefully will last for years.
Then we loaded the little water taxi and sailed off.
It was a short ride (very short indeed given the discounted price of NZ$100), but we arrived in a nearly circular bay surrounded by green hills with about a dozen houses and accompanying jetties peeping out. One of these belong to our host, Mr Lavish and his lady Well-Veiled. They came out onto the jetty to greet us and take us into our home for the next few days, a little apartment inside their boathouse. The actual house is a little way up the hill.
I have mixed views on this. The boathouse is not the cleanest and exemplifies the NZ fondness for making do whether one needs to or not. The wiring for instance is very complicated and home-done and I have not yet been able to bring myeslf to take a shower which is on the jetty and consists of a hose fed by icy springwater. It is definitely colder than Nelson, quite chilly in fact. But the location is stunning.
This morning I put on my dressing gown and sat in the sun as it rose, warming myself (too hot in the sun, too cold in the shade). The water is beautiful, green and clear, with stingrays and a fishing bird that shoots underwater after schools of fish. There is a little school of ducklings that occasionally pops by looking for cornflakes and a fat flightless weka that wandered in and then scarmbled out in an undigified ball when I turned around.
At night the water glitters with phosphorescence, the sky with southern stars and the land with fireflies.
After settling in and unpacking, we went upstairs to the main house where Mr Lavish, who is an enthusiastic cook, was making steaks on the barbeque. He is loud, bluff and occasionally crass and opinionated, but seems to be rather kind (aside from one terrible moment) and interested in others. Lady Well-Veiled is a funny one. I call her this because of the immense discrepency between her person and her Facebook profile. In the latter she is light, amusing, bubbly, a little airheaded. In person she is rather quiet, sturdy and with no pretension to dress or making up. So that my gift to her, bought on the basis of her Facebook interactions (an Afghani cocktail ring in the shape of a bird) seemed entirely misjudged.
There is no wifi in the boathouse (though there is an impressive amount of Royal tat) which is somewhat hampering my work and of course this post will have to wait till later before it goes up.