Picton

November 8th

Relaxed on board ship

The sea was calm, as we ordered, and we had a great trip over on the 1.30pm Bluebridge sailing, arriving in Picton about 5.15pm. The RSA which is not far up the road and very handy to town was our destination. We have stayed there before and found it very good - quiet and walking distance to everywhere we want to go at a cost of $6 per night. Their busy nights are Thursday- Saturday and the kitchen isn't theoretically open on the other nights but they do a simple heat-up meal, a small portion of fish pie for me accompanied by a nice good-sized freshly made salad and Butter Chicken for Len. Just $5 each so very very reasonable. We seemed to be the only ones having dinner there - just 3 committee members who we chatted to whilst having a wine and waiting for our meal. Just 2 other motorhomes in the car park.

Wednesday morning we did the easy walk to Waikawa Bay - about 50 minutes along the track and then a little longer to continue onto the Waikawa Reserve. We thought there might be a cafe there but only found toilets, ducks and seagulls so after eating our apples and feeding only the ducks our cores we headed back round to the large marina where The Jolly Roger Restaurant and Cafe is.

Coffee accompanied by delicious muffins, especially the cheese one, gave us the energy to return along the pathway to Picton, stopping again to say hello to the very friendly and beautiful horse all alone in it's paddock.

I had seen a whitebait sign up at a fisheries enroute from the ferry so we extended our walk to go there to buy what would have been my first whitebait for the season only to find that they didn't actually have any in and weren't expecting any over the next few days. Such a disappointment - I could already taste how delicious the fritters were going to be! Hopefully we'll find some whitebait somewhere before the season ends.

We decided to stay another night at the RSA - 4 motorhomes there in total this time - and on Thursday morning after dumping our waste we drove with grey clouds overhead and gusty winds to the Picton Golf Course at Koromiko hoping to get a game before the rain set in. It was reminiscent of when we played there the first time 6 years ago - very windy with very strong gusts so we tried to keep away from the trees! We found both the wind and the greens difficult and my score reflected that though I did have a better patch in the middle. We were a little held up by 2 other players for the last 4 holes so we got some sideways drizzle on us before we finished.

It's a nice course ($20 each) and so hopefully if we get to play on it again it will be fine and calm so we are not blown to bits!

After golf we drove around the corner to the CAP park in Freeth Rd - just $5 a night for each vehicle..  Again, we have stayed in this large farm paddock with the sheep and trees before and the golf course backs onto it. We're missing the goat that was here 6 years ago though. It's mid afternoon and there are huge gusts of wind rattling the bus still so we have kept well away from any trees. We have had a nice bus shower though and feel squeaky clean as we relax and hope the wind dies down soon.