Up north in Picton

Our first stay after leaving Christchuch was in Picton, up on the northern side of the island. Picton is considered a large-ish town, with about 4,000 people in it. It wasn't so large that it had a traffic light or any places open when we left town on Sunday morning, but we were able to get fuel and dinners. A win!   

View of Picton from across the harbour

   

The Picton foreshore

 

Steps connecting the Main Street with the harbour

 

People enjoying the Picton harbour in the evening

Picton is an important town for transport: the ferries that connect the South Island to the North Island go between Picton and Wellington. The ferries are huge: cars, tractor trailers, and train cars all go on the ferries. The trip between the islands takes a bit over three hours.   

One of the big ferries in the port - multiple ones came in and left every day

  We stayed in a cute little hotel with a view of the harbour and the small marina. 

View of Picton and the marina from my room

 

The Picton Marina

Our day in Picton was spent doing various walks. The day was forecast to be sunny, so we got up early to start our first hike: the Tirohanga Track. The track went up the mountain behind our hotel to the top of the ridge. It was about a 50 minute climb, but at the top we had amazing views!  

Signage is not overly emphasized in New Zealand      

Heading up the track

 

We walked through lots of bush

We also met this cute couple from Picton and chatted with them for a while. He does maintenance on boats that are housed in the marina, and she works in the school. They kindly told us all about the area: how the economy has changed with the new popularity of the wine industry, how much they like raising a family in the quiet town, and some other trails we should check out. They also told us that even Picton had been affected by the Christchurch earthquake: some people moved there when their homes or jobs were lost, but on the flipside, a lot of the disposable income in Christchurch is gone, so there are less people holidaying in Picton. 
 

After we walked back in to town, we took a short rest and then packed up a picnic lunch. Well, Mom and I did, while Dad wanted to check out a "Kentucky restaurant" in the town. 

No one working in the restaurant knew why it was named Kentucky     

The "Kentucky" restaurant had a "vegetarian" menu, which, if you can't decipher from the picture, had things like onion rings and jam doughnuts on it. I passed!

The most interesting "vegetarian" menu I've ever seen

With our lunches in hand, we caught a water taxi for a ten minute ride over to Kaipupu Point Wildlife Sanctuary. The sanctuary is kind of like an island, although it's actually at the point of some land jutting out into the sound. It's island-like because there is a fence keeping predators (and humans) from going into the reserve from the main part of the land. Animals like rats can decimate native animal populations, so this bit of land is trying to be predator free to give nature a chance to flourish. We saw traps all around the reserve - probably hundreds of them, so it's not something being done half-heartedly. 

Heading out in the water taxi

 

Troublesome passengers have to sit in the back

The water taxi ride took just 10 minute or so, and then we were left to wander the reserve. It took us an hour or so to circle the island and then we called the taxi company. Luckily they came back for us!  

Goodbye, taxi!

Our last activity of the day was diving out to The Snout and Karaka Point, both long fingers of land that jut out into the sounds. We were farther out in the sound than we'd been before, so we could really appreciate how tucked in Picton is.  

Bob's Bay + picnic table = good view

View from the picnic table =)

 

View from Karaka Point

 

Our final mini-adventure in Picton was meeting this guy. He lives on board his sailboat with his two dogs, Ralph and Diesel. We'd seen Diesel from the Harbour sidewalk the night before: while his owner was sleeping in the sail of the boat, Diesel climbed up on the motor and then leapt into the dinghy tied up to the boat. So it was very fun to meet the clever and brave Diesel and give him some pats. He and Ralph seemed pretty excited to be on the grass! Their dad told us he lives on "donations" and right now sails from harbour to harbour in New Zealand while he works his way up to sailing around the whole country. An interesting bloke with sweet dogs!

Diesel and his sleeping dad

Diesel and Ralph enjoying the grass