After some shopping (for a new stylus amongst other things, with just a bit of halfhearted grumbling from LJT about the cost compared with buying a 3 pack of the identical items online. This brought the 'discussion' about how the first one had been lost to an end. The responsible person had never been found but, for my part, I thought I had a shrewd idea of who he was....) and blogging we were back on on the road.
Unlike the so-called Sounds down in Fiordland, the Sounds on the north coast of South Island really are flooded river valleys, which, it seems, is the true meaning of the name.
If you look at a map of South Island you will easily see in the north-east corner the extensive area of ragged edged peninsulas, islands, long inlets, bays and harbours which are the Marlborough Sounds. Such roads as there are leading to the more remote spots are tortuously twisting.
Motoring along the highway between Nelson and Picton known as Queen Charlotte's Drive was easy enough, but once we'd turned off and took the road out along one of the peninsulas to a DoC campsite at Portage I began to feel quite qweasy with all the swaying and turning. Lawson had certainly had enough of the driving by the time we reached our destination.
There seemed to be quite a Cornish connection in the area; there was a hamlet called Penzance (right at the end of the road, of course) and houses with names like Pendeen and Tresillian.
By the time we reached the site the light was beginning to fade. That part of the small site that was down by the water was full of campers who looked as if they'd been there for ever and had no intention of moving any time soon. Those who have done any camping will know what I mean. The long grass around the wheels is always a good indication, as is the spread of equipment around the pitch; it's taken days to put all that out and it won't be packed up in a hurry either.
So we went to the other side of the road where there were various pitches amongst trees. After some trial and error ( pitch too dark, too short, uneven, had too many overhanging trees etc.) we made our choice, parked the van and everyone else there heaved a sigh of relief.
As we climbed out the first Weka we'd seen appeared from under a hedge. We got quite excited about this and I grabbed the camera to take some photos while Lawson gave me the usual unhelpful directions, !ike, 'we really need a shot from the front' as the bird walked away from me determinedly.
This is what we were doing when Alex, the warden of the site, came up to us.
'Hi,' he said. 'I come from the Chatham Islands. We eat them there.'
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| Chatham Islands are yellow patch off coast |
This is Alex, who told us that Weka is 'the lamb of the bird world.' We also learned that he used to live in Christchurch, that his Mum's still there and continues to be hooked on gardening in spite of all the earthquake problems but that he's based now in Invercargill. Property's cheaper there, he said. It's even possible to find places for as little as 30,000 dollars (about £15,000). I suspect that, even in unfashionable Invercargill, this would definitely be the bottom of the market.
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