So we left our nice Napier home and Sal and Alan to driveoff south to Wellington.
The day started fine and sunny, lots of cows and sheep, and small quaint towns.


As we got to Wellington it got very windy . Our motel was in Thorndon, very much the Hampstead of Wellington, boutique restaurants, and antique shops, and a very old Speights pub which served us well fortwo nights eating.
We were based half way down the Botanic Gardens towards Wellington City, so we walked into the city which is tiny and then got the Cable car back up . The second day in Wellington it rained all day, so we had to go to the museum Te Papa, which I thought at the time “ oh
no” , but it was really an insight into Maori life , and quite captivating.


Up early the next morning for the Inter Islander ferry………..3 and half hours to the south island, initially a sea crossing and then suddenly the ship goes into the Sounds, and manoeuvred itself through Charlotte Sound steep bush either side entering the sea, so an hour and half of scenic splendour.


Picton was a small port where we landed and tiny really…………̷ 0;.so off then for a coastal drive
along Charlotte Sound Drive, up and down tight bends and a view of different arms of the Sounds, hard to describe and overloaded with great views from each bend………….


Just past a place called Havelock along the road side along the fences were trainers, shoes and boots all tied to the fences, apparently it started with a few and now has become a ritual…………̷ 0;.

where do they all come from to tie their boots up here?


Funny eh !




We were staying at Renwick, at Watsons Lodge Backpackers. We had a double room with en suite which was cosy and nicely decorated. There were four doubles and then the other rooms were Cheaper backpacker 25 dollar( £12 a night) sharing bunks I think 8 in a room.


We had to take our shoes off for all communal areas and rightly so as they had all new carpets, the communal kitchen was great, fully equipped , and was the hub of the place. Paul and Pat who ran it were in their 70’s, his ancestors had the land since 1840. They were really nice and you
could feel they truly enjoyed having diverse folk stay. Paul also rented bicycles as the wine tour by bike was popular .


Our fellow travellers were Casey and Mitchell who were in a camper van out the back, nice kids of about 28 I think. A quiet Canadian Couple, then a sweet Belgian couple in their late 20’s and then a bunch of Spaniards our age, six of them arrived on bicycles rather late and took over
the kitchen with stir frys! The rest of us had already cooked our dinners.


We all had baskets to keep our food in and labelled our own in the fridge………….ha very ging gang gooly!!


We were asked to play Monopoly but declined as we seem to need to go the bed early…………they never finished it till midnight so good job we didn’t play!



The next day was “Toms Day”, the “Wine Tour”.

The Marlborough region is Toms favourite and mine too when it comes to Cloudy Bay.


We first went to the Cellar Doors of Villa Maria, ( Jill Jacksons favourite). The girl in there was really chatty and we had tastings of about six wines……….. Tom chose the two favourite reds and one white.












We then went to Cloudy Bay expecting to have lunch there( as it says on the web site!) but no lunches…………R 30;….did some tastings and bought 3 bottles……



We then walked opposite to Alan Scott a family brewery, chose this one purely on our stomachs
wanting lunch and this place had a lovely outdoors Italian style eating area with heaters………….we had a tasting first and then we went and had a small lunch.





We had two days at the Backpackers and really enjoyed it, great fun to mix in at dinner time. The last night Casey and Mitchell were still there, and a lady my age arrived in her own, Nany, a Dutch but now Kiwi resident………… 230;she was on a book tour trying to get her published books sold
through local shops so this was one of many of her stops…………… ;..another couple
Taiwanese turned up, and he told tales of his rather windy Auckland marathon,
the week before.



That was our stay at Renwick…………we left with some nice
bottles of wine in the boot!!