D Day +46

Driving day today as we make our way to Blenheim. Not a particularly long drive so we might take the opportunity to go “off piste” a bit. The first bit to Motueka is back along the road we drove into Marahau on. Given that its the ONLY road to Marahau there’s not really a lot of choice.

The road takes us through Appleby, Richmond and Nelson which are pretty much all one town and this is simply the biggest conurbation we have seen with some pretty big industrial sites and a container port at Nelson. It also has a couple of kilometres of DUAL CARRIAGEWAY. Civilisation, but it comes with a cost as the traffic is quite heavy.

The road is pretty flat as it follows the coast through Nelson until you get to Hira where you start to climb into the Hira forest and continue on narrow windy roads until you get to Whangamoa where you start to descend into the Ria valley. We stop at the Brick Oven Cafe for breakfast. A really nice cup of coffee and an unusual pie, Chicken, Asparagus, Cheese and Bacon. Well you have to don’t you.

We follow the valley floor to Havelock and then stop on the way out to climb to a lookout. The path is great to start but gets a bit rougher as we get higher but when we get to the top the view is worth it.

Heading on we see a sign saying scenic route to Picton. Now we don’t need to be at Picton till tomorrow but its not far from Blenheim so we decide to give it a go and I’m really glad we did as the road was a fabulous drive, always twisting and turning and climbing and descending. It sounds terrible especially as there are numerous landslips where the cliff has fallen onto the road or the road has fallen down the cliff but it has some incredible scenery and the time flys past.

At one point Chris says she has just see a big P&O building through the trees. When we find a place to stop it turns out that the building is actually a cruise ship. Not something you expect to see when you are on a mountain road. Turns out its actually a secondary port outside Picton which is used by cruise ships and as you can see from the pictures cargo ships loading timber.

A short drive to Blenheim and check into the hotel. First thing is to get some washing done as the hotel has a guest laundry. While Chris is doing that I head out to see if I can get a haircut and fail miserably. Oh well will try Wellington when we get there.

A very passable Indian and thats another day done.