Journeys End

Well it’s all over (for now!) spending our last day in Picton we sat out in the sun and enjoyed the last  few hours of a great holiday.   We have seen some amazing sights and met some wonderful people.   Now we just have the ferry journey to go and again the weather has come up trumps and the sea looks reasonably calm.

Nice Day in Picton

Farewell to the South Island

A few statistics on the trip.   The black lines are where we went.

We travelled a total of 6624 km,   3739km with the caravan on the back.

Total fuel used was 977.67 litres at a cost of $1627 .67 (dearest was Karamea at $1.84/litre!)

Overall accommodation cost was $848.20 at an average nightly cost of $10.09.   We managed that by avoiding motor camps where possible and staying at :

9  x NZMCA Parks, 2 x freedom Camping Areas, 18 x Low Cost Parks, 6 x POP’s, 10 x Motor Camps, 2 x clubs.    (Now try and tell me that NZMCA membership isn’t worth the cost ! ! )

So that’s it for a little while, thanks for following the blog – until next time !

Nearly at Journeys End

Leaving Nelson today for the drive to Picton and the ferry tomorrow.   A distant view of one of the Navy Patrol vessels just entering Port as we leave.  

  The road takes a good few twists and turns as it climbs out of Nelson and over the Richmond Range.   The hills seem endless but finally we descend into the Rai Valley and on towards Picton.   The road signs gave us an overall mileage of 139km but our GPS was about 30km less so we decided to follow that.   It turned us off into Queen Charlotte Drive for a lovely scenic drive along the side of Queen Charlotte sound.   It was very narrow in places and the winding road made the journey hard work.   It would be a lovely trip just in a car but I probably wouldn’t do it again with the caravan on the back.

Arriving finally at Picton we stopped for a quick photo at the lookout and watched the Bluebridge ferry arriving while the Interislander was preparing to leave.

The Trans Coastal was ready to leave (another train trip we would like to do) so we watched that, bought some lunch and had a look around Picton (that didn’t take long) – most of it was shut !

Trans Coastal

The Picton War Memorial

We are staying at a motor camp for our last night in the South Island just up the road from the terminal.   We are leaving on the Kaitaki tomorrow at 1:05 and should be home by 5pm.

Mucking About in Nelson

Another brilliantly sunny day today and we drove into Nelson City for a look around the shops.   We have decided not to do the normal sightseeing things as we intend to return to this area next year and will have a good look at all the normal tourist things then.   So today was a wander through the CBD and a stop for a nice coffee.

We followed this with a visit to Burnsco Marine where I found a good 48 LED outside light for the caravan.   Eventually I will get most of the interior lights changed to LED’s.

Panoramic View of Nelson Inlet

Tomorrow we head even closer to home as we relocate to Picton ready for the ferry on Monday  – we will definitely be returning south next year if we can.

Motueka to Nelson

A pleasant stay in Motueka and somewhere we must revisit at a later date, just a lazy day wandering round the shops after our visit with Terrence and Mavis yesterday.   We had joined the other travellers at the Marchwood Park A&P grounds this morning.

Marchwood Park

This another good stop which has a large number of motorhomes and caravans wintering over in the relatively warm Tasman weather.   The camp is located on the edge of Motueka airport so there is a constant stream of entertainment taking off and flying in.

Dropping in for Tea !

Pauline and I are moving on ahead of the others now and will relocate to Nelson for a couple of nights before catching the ferry home.   We all went out for a farewell dinner at the Motueka Hotel and a had a nice meal and drink or two before meeting back in Robin and Jennys caravan for a drink.

Farewell Dinner

We will miss the company of the others but it is nice that we were able to stay with them for the majority of our trip instead of having to race ahead as we thought we might have to do earlier.

We arrived in Richmond just 10 mins from Nelson and into another Racecourse, another place popular for wintering over and getting quite busy for those enjoying that lifestyle.   Richmond is a lovely satellite town outside Nelson and it enjoys good weather, shopping and a relaxed lifestyle.

Richmonds’s Main Street

Across to Motueka

Yesterday (Tuesday) Pauline and I headed off earlier than the others as we were driving direct to Motueka without stopping at Tapawera which  the others intended.  The  drive from Murchison to Motueka was stunning going through a valley beside the river with beautiful Autumn colours on the roadside trees and a hint of snow on the mountains in the distance.

We had decided to go on ahead to visit our friends who used to live in York Bay in Wellington and who relocated to Motueka some years ago.   Terrence and Pauline and I had many a good time sailing together on Wellington Harbour in either Terrence's trailer sailer or ours.   We duly parked up their driveway and spent the afternoon “jawing” about the good times we used to enjoy when sailing was the main hobby.   Terrence cooked us an excellent roast meal followed by a lovely dessert from Mavis, we were really spoiled.

We have now caught up with the other two travellers at the A&P showgrounds at Motueka.   We are going to go out to dinner tonight as it’s our last night travelling with them.   We need to keep moving to get back to Wellington by next Monday or Tuesday so will move to Nelson for a couple of nights before going to Picton and the Ferry.