Arrived in Picton at lunchtime to a cloudy cool day!!! Worried don't have enough warm clothes... Oh well the New Zealand economy will get a boost!!!
We picked up our hire car and started on our way to Motuka...
We stopped at the best bakery in the South Island in Picton and bought a Moroccan spiced pie and sausage roll...
Now we can start driving, with a full tummy (hopefully stays down)...
What a beautiful part of the world, the Queen Charlotte Sounds, the New Zealand bush gullies full of tree ferns, steep ridges going into bays!!! in the bays you saw kayaks, yachts & motor boats...totally idyllic!!!
Slowly making our way around the coast passing through Havelock... reputedly the Mussel Capital of New Zealand!!! We stopped and had a coffee in an Irish pub!!! Great coffee... We then went to an art gallery next door called Pelorus...beautiful pieces!
Driving on we actually went through Pelorus... I asked John what Pelorus meant, what an amazing story!!!
Pelorus Jack would guide the ships by swimming alongside a water craft for twenty minutes at a time. If the crew could not see Jack at first, they would often wait for him to appear.
Pelorus Jack was first seen around 1888 when it appeared in front of the schooner Brindle when the ship approached French Pass, a channel located between D'Urville Island and the South Island. The area is dangerous to ships with rocks and strong currents but no shipwrecks occurred when Jack was present.
Since 1989, Pelorus Jack has been used as a symbol for the Interislander, a ferry service across the Cook Strait that is what we travelled on across from Wellington...
Next stop Motueka...