As April began we were headed over the Cook Strait and to the South Island. The crossing was very calm and the weather over Picton sunny on arrival! Micheal and Iona had kindly offered us a few days in their rather luxurious holiday home in Wairawa Harbour (about 5km from Picton), which was a lovely place to stay and afforded us luxuries like beds, ceilings and TV! We spent our time visiting Blenheim, Nelson and waving farewell to Pip who is now on a whistlestop tour of the South Island before spending three weeks in Australia in May. So, at the moment, we are down to three.
The few days in Picton were highly relaxing and, as well as excursions to explore, we managed to do a few jobs for Mike and Iona. Since then we've continued West along the Marlborough Sounds coastline to Havelock (at the bottom of the Pelorus Sounds) and we're currently enroute to Motueka before attempting the Abel Tasman asap. We've delayed the trek a little as both Clare and Anna have Kiwi colds and we might as well be fit to begin with.
Havelock was a very small and quiet place which we couldn't really enjoy too much thanks to a couple days of rain (although, given the weather we've had, we cannot really complain). It is the self-proclaimed green shelled mussel capital of the world and little else really seems to happen here....that said we had a good night in 'the clansman' a local scottish themed bar (which was made of stone and had a fire...novelties out here) and a good pizza at a local restaurant!
