I'm on a boat!

We had a little change of plans from the original today and decided to check out the Marlborough Sounds. These are valleys that were drowned by the seas many many years ago and left some pretty amazing sights behind. We started in a small town called Picton which is only about 20 minutes north of Blenheim (where we did wine tasting). We ran into a little trouble early in the morning when rain kept coming in off the ocean and ruining our plans. A little rain couldn't stop us so we took a 2 hour scenic drive until the rain cleared up a little bit. Here are some pictures from the drive.

 A nice view from the highway. The clouds were breaking up a little bit

 More highway views

 Same place as above but I'm blocking a good view

 And yet another view from the highway with clouds hanging over the mountains.

After lunch in town, the clouds broke up and the sun came out so we signed up for a cruise. But not just any cruise, it was a 4 1/2 hour journey on the mail route. Yep, they deliver the mail by boat and we rode along. It wasn't as rustic as that sounds. It was a pretty nice boat that takes people on the route every day... basically a ferry. It gave us incredible views of the sounds and it was pretty relaxing. Here's a map of everywhere we got to see (our route is in yellow)...

 This is early in the ride looking back toward Picton.

 This is the first mail stop. I guess there's a house up there somewhere.

 The view from the boat on the way to the next stop.

 This was the second stop. The people having their mail delivered had this nice little number for sail for a measly $1.2 million.

 And again, back on the water to the next stop. The water was that great turquoise color whenever the sun was out.

 Getting closer to our next stop, there was an opening in the channel that led to the north island. If you look closely between the rocks you can see some hills in the distance. That's the north island.

 And this was the next mail stop. It was strange how the island suddenly went from dense jungles to basically prairie grass.

 A little closer to their dock and the barn.

 This is facing away from the barn. Look how there is jungle on the hills to the right of my head and prairie grass to the left. Crazy stuff

 This was their neighbor and our next stopping point.

 These people only had access to their house by boat so they had all of their supplies delivered by mail. They got mostly food and animal feed. They also had a few little puppies and two kids. We were wondering what the kids will do for schooling when they get older. Home school maybe?

 Some more water and mountains. You're probably starting to see a pattern.

 Our next stop was at Ship Cove where Captain Cook liked to stop when he was exploring the area in the 1700's. This was also the first kiwi we've seen since we've been here... it only took us 5 weeks.

 This was a little walking bridge at Ship Cove.

 This is the view out to the ocean from the walking bridge.

 They erected a monument to Captain Cook. They'll have one for me soon enough.


This is the front of the cove. Looks a little like Treasure Island

And us posing in front of the cove. The jackets kind of ruin the tropical theme but it was cool when there was cloud cover.
 Then we got back on the boat and what did we find....

Jay-Z and Beyonce were on the boat waiting for us! Ok, maybe not but you could imagine what it would be like if they were.

That was our day in a nut shell. We're back in Nelson tonight and planning on heading to Abel Tasman tomorrow for some beach time. Hopefully we don't get fried by the sun!