Marlborough Tour

Day 1

April 7th

We are on our way. First leg, Hamilton to Wellington on the 6am flight. The glamorous look of travel in covid times.

Taking off from Wellington over the wind farm heading to Blenheim in the South Island.

And about 10 minutes later we are over the South Island.

Final approach to Blenheim airport over the Marlborough vines where Colleen's wine comes from.

Half an hour after landing we are at Upton Oak Garden for a tour of the gardens.

Our tour group enjoying morning tea by the pool.

Blenheim

April 8th

Today we are visiting the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre. An aviation museum that Sir Peter Jackson is involved in.

This is one of the displays showing an incident in the WWII when the spitfire of James Hayter was shot down and he parachuted into a cocktail party. The plane is upside down with the canopy blown off.

A female doctor attending the party bandaged his injured head.

This incident, in WWI, shows a pilot climbing out of his uncotrollable aircraft. He found he could control it when he was on the wing. He guided it close to the gound and jumped off just before it crashed. He picked himself up and headed for the nearest trenches.

Our lunch stop was at the Witherhills Winery. This is a view of the cellar.

Havelock

April 9th

Here is the boat we will spend the day on touring the sounds delivering mail.

The weather is not very good today. The sounds are dull and grey.

This is our first stop, Te Rawa, after about an hour of sailing.

The photos above show a typical scene at a dock with locals coming down to collect their mail.

One of the highlights is to meet the domestic animal of the residents.

So they are fed by the co-pilot to make sure they are always there.

Even a domestic pig.

This is one of five gun emplacements in the sounds for defence against a Japanese invasion. They were never used. Above the gun emplacement is the rang finding emplacement.

Two more of our deliveries.

By the afternoon the clouds were down on top of the hills.

Nelson

April 10th

Today we are on a wine tour. Just one other person in the van so it is a nice small group. It is also raining therefore no outside photos. This is part of our lunch, flat bread and humus. Notice the abscence of wine? We had just come back from a tasting while the food was cooked.

This is the other half of our lunch. Vegetable pizza.

After lunch we went to the oldest surviving original pub. I had a stout here and Colleen had a coffee.

Nelson

April 11th

Today we have a sight seeing tour. Our first stop was Queen's Gardens.

It is a sign of the times when you spot this covid sign on a bridge in the gardens.

Next stop was the Ernest Rutherford memorial at Brightwater his birthplace.

From there we went to Mapua Wharf. It has little shops and restaurants. Lots of people were enjoying a sunny Sunday out.

Finally we went to an apple orchard to see all the hail damaged apples that were not worth picking.

Nelson

April 12th

Our final day. The flight home is in the afternoon so we went for a walk. This is inside Christ Church Cathedral built in 19th century on a hilltop opposite our hotel.

This is Melrose House. We thought we would have lunch here. After checking the menu we decided to walk back into town for lunch.