Happy Waitangi Day. This is a National Holiday which is celebrated with mixed feelings, as some Maori are not happy about the treaty signed with the British in 1840.

There were some clouds this morning, but had a partial view of snow topped mountains as we left Kaikoura and headed toward Marlborough. I heard it mentioned on the radio that this is early for snow on the mountains, after all it is still late summer, even though we are relatively close to Antarctica.

We passed several fenced pastures with deer. They mostly export the venison. I wonder if it ends up in Skippy's dog food? They do have some wild deer that were introduced to NZ for hunting purposes, but they are quite rare. I have never seen any in the wild, nor wild elk, bighorn sheep or mountain goats. The only prevalent wild land mammal is the possum. Locals encourage you to run over them on the highway.

Our route from Kaikoura took us north along the coast. We kept an eye peeled for whales and dolphins, which are plentiful in this area because of a sea trough that runs unusually close to the coastline and creates an upsurge of plankton. The sea wasn’t as rough as it was yesterday, but there were surfers out enjoying the waves.    We did see another large fur seal colony, with seals of all sizes enjoying sunning themselves on the rocks.

The East Coast of the South Island is very windy, and we saw wind turbines on one hillside, not as many as we see in Western US, but it makes sense for them to take advantage of alternative energy as fuel is so expensive here.   We also saw a large salt works where they collect salt from evaporating seawater in large, shallow beds on the coast.

As we got closer to Blenheim, we saw more and more vineyards. Marlborough is the center for wine production for NZ because of its favorable climate, warm summer days and cool nights. There are more than 50 wineries here, so we stopped at one of the more famous ones, Cloudy Bay. We enjoyed a tasting of six of their wines. I read about the 7 S's of wine tasting: See, Swirl, Smell, Sip, Swish, Savor and Spit. We didn't practice the last S; we enjoyed every swallow and bought a bottle of their signature wine which is a Sauvignon Blanc.  

Then we drove on through the hills until we reached the Marlborough Sounds. We have booked a special boat ride on the Sounds tomorrow.

We drove along Queen Charlotte Sound to Smith’s Farm, which is also a campground. This is a lovely setting on the hillside. They raise cattle, pigs, goats and sheep. We like that it is not as crowded as the city-based Top Ten Holiday Parks.

Another bit of excitement – there is a tsunami warning for the coast tonight. It is due to an 8.0 earthquake that occurred in the Solomon Islands this afternoon.  It is supposed to be worse on the North Island, and even there it probably won’t be very bad, according to predictions. Hope they are correct.