Whites Bay to Picton

White's Bay, just over the hill from Rarangi and it's golf course, is beautiful. A popular, safe beach with a good DOC campground, $26 a night for 2 - clean toilets and cold showers. No beach view from our site near the beach but we could hear the quiet waves. 

A rock hopper!

Great to walk around the rocks to suss out the fishing spots, although a couple of young French guys hadn't managed to catch any despite having their frypan at the ready! 

That's where we'll see glow worms tonight. 

In the evening we walked through the campsite to the nearby glowworm grotto where the glowworms were performing as they should.

View of the bay & the sound of bellbirds. 

This morning it was overcast but a good temperature for walking, perfect for doing the 1.5 hour Black Jack Loop which also takes you to the Port Underwood viewpoint.

Looking into Port Underwood and the sounds.

A nice walk up with good views towards the Sounds and the North Island and an even better walk down, as always.

When we returned there were more than a dozen 40+ year old Outward Bounders being put to the test in their kayaks around the rocks, their vehicle and trailer being parked right in front if us.

Rarangi beach through the hole. 

We would have been better to collect some mussels, as they did, rather than do the fishing thing but Len still loves sitting out there waiting for a strike while I found one little spot where I could get on the internet before reading in my chair on the beach. I had envisaged diving into the sea for a swim after our walk but it was cool and not being able to even take my jacket off it was obviously much too cold to swim!

With not even a bite it was soon time to move on to Picton, having decided to cross to Wellington on the ferry tomorrow. So here we are once again parked behind the RSA alongside a couple of other motorhomes.

The next morning, Friday, we wandered down into town where we looked around the market catering especially to the cruise ship which was in. The prices for greenstone, polished paua and carved wooden bowls and platters were actually very very reasonable compared to the shop prices. 

About 1000 years between them!

There was an old time band playing some good music on the harbour front as well.

Wellington ahoy!

Our ferry to Wellington which was meant to leave at 2.00pm was delayed by well over an hour so, after a very smooth trip over Cook Strait in the sunshine, it was 7.15pm before we docked meaning that it was virtually dark by the time we arrived at the Plimmerton NZMCA Park but luckily there was still a space for us. Loads of vans ?70 or 80  already there.