Picturesque Picton

Ouch! Sharp mussels at Ship Cove
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We took the ferry over from Wellington and it docks in the small town of Picton. Unusually for us, we'd booked a hostel and they came to pick us up from the ferry terminal. The hostel was lovely, the best we'd been to on our trip so far, but then we realised later that hostels are of a very high standard in New Zealand.

Picton is very small, just one main street straggling back from the harbour. However it's perched right on the Malborough Sounds and it's from Picton that the mail gets delivered to the more remote households living on the sounds. So the next day we booked ourselves onto the Mailboat for a cruise, whilst they deliver the mail. It was a very nice catarmaran with a lovely skipper called Josh. You could bring a picnic lunch or wine, we bought some Malborough Rose as the weather was so nice.

We could see a lot of excited doggies jumping up on jetties in the distance!

Monument to Cook at Ship Cove
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The sounds are very beautiful and because they are so sheltered from the open sea, the water's like glass. We saw many sea birds, shearwaters and terns.

Josh knows all the people he delivers mail to really well and because this particular route just went weekly, sometimes he was delivering shopping too. All the dogs on the jettys knew Josh since he gave them all dog biscuits too! We could see a lot of excited doggies jumping up on jetties in the distance!

We made a brief stop at Ship Cove where Captain Cook used to land to get water and fruit for the crew. I paddled around in the water amongst the sharp green-lipped mussels (ouch!). We chatted to some guys there from the Department of Conversation who were on a possum poisioning trip. They really hate possums in New Zealand because they eat the bark of native trees.

Ship Cove
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It was a really enjoyable day and when we came back, we booked our train ticket on the Tranzcoastal to Kailkoura.