I am sitting on the balcony of a motel and the mists have come down from the mountains and hills and it is cold and beautiful here. It is very similar to the main drag of Jasper Alberta or that little mountain community (forgotten the name of it) outside Colorado Springs which is build up on the mountain side and the lights shine half way up the sky. This is Picton and we had a good drive today. The reason that I am outside in the cold is that the internet does not work in the rooms. It is free as that is why I booked the place but they did not tell me that internet works only outside (they are working on it, that's what the owner told me this evening).
So we left Christchurch at 7:30 this am and stopped at St Anne's Lagoon which was very pretty and we think we saw the Blue Duck. We will send it to Nick and let him look at it and decide. From there we travelled to Kakoura for the pelagic boat trip. The day, my friend, the seas were fairly calm with only roiling waves of a couple of meters. So both Colleen and I loaded up with Gravol and got on. We saw Wandering Albatross, Selwins, Royal Albatross and several other pelagic birds just meters from our boat. We saw dolphins and seals also. The boat trip was great and it finished around 4:15 pm. Then there was time for a tea break.
We then drove to Picton and we must have passed about a dozen wineries, this is wine country! So when we arrived we picked up fish takeout and also a bottle of NZ wine. It was pretty good.
Tomorrow, we ditch the rental car and take the ferry over to the North Island and Wellington. My suitcase has now lost 2 of its 4 wheels and I can't pull out the pull handle (men can, but I can't). So with a totally useless suitcase, I am going to try to get on the ferry tomorrow. I am told that you have to check in the luggage, which would suit me fine and let someone else struggle. I looked around for a suitcase in Christchurch but they only had really cheap ones which I don't think are better than the broken one I have now.
WE had wonderful lifers today, including the Cirl Bunting and the Blue Duck (we think) and we saw some awesome New Zealand scenery. We enjoyed every minute of it. I think Colleen took some really great shots of the pelagic birds.
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