Picton, Blenheim, Pelorus Bridge

It's now over 4 days since I last wrote something in the blog so I need to recall everything that we have done. At the moment we are nestled into a fabulous DOC site at Pelorus Bridge between Blenheim and Nelson - it's like a big lawn with little bays, all surrounded by native bush, for parking in as well as more trees in the middle and a river running alongside. The facilities - showers, toilets and kitchen are all quite new and even though we had a "bus shower" this morning I'm looking forward to getting into the nice one here! The camp fee for 2 of us is $20 a night. There is a nice cafe nearby in the public parking area and we can totally recommend their icecreams - huge! They made Len's day as he has been rather icecream-deprived over the last 6-7 weeks with only a tiny freezer in the bus. We bought our first TipTop tub yesterday after making room for it by finishing off the packet of stirfry veges! There is no internet or cellphone connection here - a downside to parking up in more isolated country areas and it seems to happen to us often. We just have to hope that no-one is trying to contact us urgently and my other hope is that Len is able to transfer this blog onto 'the blog' as with no internet I am having to do it on 'word'. So if it all ends up looking different, that's why. l will go back now to Sunday when we took the Bluebridge ferry to Picton. We had a great crossing - virtually no wind and mainly sunny so the sea was calm. There was another bus, the same colour as ours but towing a car, on the ferry and we had a bit of a chat to the owners as well as another couple from Blenheim who gave us some tips on good places to park around Nelson/ Marlborough. The first night we just parked at a little camp in Picton itself so we were handy for exploring the town the next day which ended up being quite active - we did a walk out to Bob's Bay which was very pretty - the water is so clear and felt much warmer than what we were experiencing on land even though the sun was shining. Some ladies who were gardening in the town recommended that we also walk up through the bush to Humphrey's Dam which we also enjoyed, each of the walks being about an hour long. Then we were on the road, heading towards Blenheim until we became waylaid at the Koromiko golf course - it's just 9 holes but we did 18 even though we were Really Cold with the southerly wind. We could have stayed at the course overnight but it was on the main road so we travelled just a couple of km up the next road to a NZMCA POP - a large farmer's paddock which was just $3 for overnight parking and where we felt very safe. We thought we were the only ones there til we spotted another van when we woke in the morning. They must have arrived late. We liked the rural feel of being woken with the baaing of sheep and lambs instead of traffic. Tuesday we continued on our way to Blenheim via Rarangi Beach where there was another DOC camp beachside which looked great but we didn't stop for long with the howling wind blowing down the beach and making it rather unpleasant. In Blenheim we parked up for 2 nights at the Waterlea Racecourse where they allow motorhomes to stay for $5 a night - there are toilets and a washing machine but no showers - and around 10 motorhomes parked there each night. We didn't mind being woken by the horses doing their trotting practices around the course - all these different morning noises help us to remember where we are! Blenheim has a nice cycle path all along the river so we explored that before heading into town thinking we might treat ourselves to some takeaways but we couldn't find any so instead chose to go to Biddy Kates, the local Irish Bar, where they had whitebait fritters on special (not quite as good as mine I have to say but still enjoyable). Len had a delicious Irish stew and I was even a little envious.

Yesterday (Wednesday) we walked up to the top of Mt Vernon which took us about 2.5 hours and gave us great views of Blenheim, the North Island and the mountains. Blenheim is on a plane with the hills and mountains all around and we were struck by the different coverings over the hills - lots of bright yellow broom on some, pines or bush on others with some denuded by the cutting down of the pines. Then you see the mountains behind, some snowcapped - as we climbed Mt Vernon the fields look like corduroy with all the plantings in the vineyards.

Today we set off towards Nelson but haven't got there yet. We came via Whitehaven (Lens home town in England) Wines hoping to do some tasting and purchasing but found that we should have visited the outlet in town so all we got was a photo. We stopped at Havelock for lunch and a walk into the wetlands before continuing on to this campsite at Pelorus Bridge. We did a bushwalk from here up to a couple of waterfalls (a bit over an hour) before getting our chairs out for the first time to sit in the lovely sun and have a Corona. It was 5.30 but still nice and warm and it feels that summer might be trying to come at last!