The first half of the journey was pretty boring, with the weather as miserable as it was we couldn't see much. However, as we got closer to the south island James had a look outside and even though it was cold and windy the views were really nice. We were getting closer to Marlborough Sound.

We had a quick stop off in Picton's iSite where we got information about the Queen Charlotte track along the edge of the sound and we were on our way. We were heading for a DOC site that was near to one of the walks that we were hoping to do the following day, if the weather cleared. The road was really windy and both of us felt a bit sick by the time we arrived but it was definitely worthwhile. The campsite was situated right on the lake and whilst I was cooking, we had a few very cute duck visitors to keep us amused. The wind was ferocious in the night but our spot seemed to be secluded and protected from the wind. This proved to be beneficial for the next day as the bad weather had cleared and we had a beautiful day to enjoy our walk. The walk was supposed to take 3 hours but we smashed it in just over an hour. We decided to continue to walk until we had got to 3 hours; we got really far and got some rewarding views. We met only a handful of people along the way. Our favourites was a Dad and his two very cute children who we kept bumping into on our way back as they would spontaneously run past us until we caught up with them again.

After our 6 hour walk we were a little tired but our next stop was in Blenheim a short drive away. We got to a campsite and sat in the sun for a while. Our next day was off to see more wineries and Blenheim town centre didn't seem too interesting so we got a reasonably early night.

The next day it was wineries after wineries and again, James was driving so I was in charge of tasting. Marlborough wine was very tasty, too tasty in fact. After the 3rd winery I was pretty drunk and James started giggling at me when I downed some very expensive dessert wine like it was shot. The tastings were better here compared with Hawkes Bay as you paid a small fee for five generous tastings and it meant we didn't feel we had to buy a bottle. We drove down to Kaikoura for the afternoon and found another freebie campsite right opposite the beach. It was very basic but another fine location.