The above picture is of Milford Sound by the way, but seeing as how we still can't get our own pictures on it will have to do. Picton is the base for the Queen Charlotte Sounds which may go towards explaining that opening sentence.

Just in case you are ever in the area the drive from Nelson to Picton has a scenic route which is the one we took and was well worth it encompassing as it did a some more Sounds which i'm sure you'll remember are something to do with valleys filling with water and well actually I can't remember myself but they are very nice to look at.

Picton itself is a pretty little harbour town of about 4000 people, it is pretty quiet and it's main function is that it is where the ferry docks from Wellington. We had a day there before getting the ferry and chose to do a cruise around the Sounds. Splashing out on the most expensive option we did the NZ Mailrun cruise. Basically there are up to a hundred houses out in the middle of no-where that are only accessable by boat and this cruise served not only to show off the area but also dropped the mail off to those houses. God knows how they built some of the houses but it must have taken ages and it's suprising to city dwellers like ourselves that anyone would want to live so far from civilisation, butthey do and juding by the looks of a few of them it is probably good for civilisation that they live where they do.

The hi-light of the trip was not an advertised one in that unexpectedly a family of Hector dolphins appeared by the side of the boat and decided to follow us for a while. Dolphin fans amongst you may know that the Hector Dolphin is the smallest and rarest of all the dolphins according to our captain, a young ginger guy who seemed to think he was captain of a warship as opposed to a postie on water so if my dolphin facts are wrong then don't blame me.

That was it for Picton really except that we had a really nice pizza that night and of zero interest to you is that we were sat at the next table to the poshest couple I have ever seen. If I had to guess he was a retired judge and her erm Queen or something. Anyway they ordered the same pizza as me and ate about one slice before declaring it too much for them. This is of no relavance to our travels except that we were starving and ours hadn't arived yet and I want to know whether any of you think it would have been bad form for me to lean over and ask him if he'd finished with that and if he wouldn't mind shoving it over in our direction. I suspect he would have had me shot as a commie or something. I didn't by the way and still regret it.

That was it for the South Island which we both really loved and was very friendly. Next stop is the North Island (obviously) and i'm sure one of us will compare them when we've done them both.