Picton appears to be another cute little port town tucked into a hilly inlet at the very north end of the South Island. There are sawn and debarked pine logs stacked up next to the pier awaiting export. This is also a terminus for one of the main ferries that connects the South and North Islands. There are a lot of car transporters parked in waiting lines for the inter-island ferry service with both new and used vehicles.
The town itself has a population of around 30K and the economy is driven by the forestry and agricultural exports. We drove past a school where kids in uniforms were out running around the track. The school year in New Zealand runs from February 1st to December 15th. The kids will soon be on their summer break because the seasons are reversed in the southern hemisphere from what we’re used to in the northern hemisphere.
Our first stop took us up through the hills and then down into a wide river valley where many of the hillsides were sheep and cattle ranges and the valley bottom was filled with expansive vineyards. This part of the South Island is Marlborough country, quite literally, and it is renowned not for cigarettes, but for New Zealand wines. This area produces Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc white wines and Pinot Noir reds.
Woodend Gardens in Grovetown was a 30 min drive from Picton, and turned out to be a lovely venue for weddings adjacent to the vineyards owned and operated by the same family. The garden is surrounded by an imposing looking hedge that was at least 12’ high with an entrance tunneled through at one corner.
Ciara is in the process of planning her own wedding so it was a bit of a shock to see that this venue in New Zealand could be rented for less than $1000 New Zealand dollars, which works out to only $600 US dollars. Similar venues that the US are routinely charging $10-25K for one day rentals. Wedding inflation in the US has gone bonkers since the Bridezilla reality TV show made 6 figure weddings a thing. But you’d have to figure in the cost of flying a wedding party and guests across the Pacific and housing them.
We had morning tea, which included tea, instant coffee, finger sandwiches and cakes. In both Australia and New Zealand, instant coffee is far more prevalent than a brewed pot of coffee in hotels and cafes.
Interestingly enough, we learned that the grapes produced in these particular vineyards get exported to California where they end up as Cupcake wines.
Our next stop took us over the hills and down to the Pacific coast where the water was a surprisingly pale blue color.
Our lunch venue was a cafe on the coast called The Store in Kekerengu, a family owned enterprise associated with an adjacent campground, 6K acre sheep station, medicinal cannabis operation and Winterhome Gardens.
The lunch was very well prepared and served with a selection of local wines. There was loutdoor seating, and the weather was perfect for dining outside. However, the silver gulls are keenly aware of the availability of food there so if you turned your back for even a moment, one would swoop down and snatch the food off your plate. This happened to one guest who lost had to go back through the buffet after a gull snatched the ham and roast beef right off his plate.
It was a first class lunch, much nicer than yesterday’s Erewon sheep station fare.
We could walk a bit around the grounds and down to the beach. It was very nicely landscaped and there were children from the campground playing on the beach. The beach is a grey sand and gravel beach not unlike our Pacific beaches in Washington.
We then took a short hop in the bus up to the sheep station, past the cannabis grow greenhouse and processing building.
We had another demonstration of the shepherding techniques using the border collie and huntaway dogs similar to what we had seen at the Walter Peak and Erewon stations, and another shearing demonstration where the shearer was able to do a Romney ewe in 2 minutes without losing control of the animal.
The bus took us back down to the store for a quick bathroom stop before heading back to Picton where we we scheduled to visit a hand made chocolate shop but just a couple of miles down the road, traffic came to a complete halt. Our driver walked forward and found out that the road was closed due to a fatality accident. An air ambulance helicopter flew overhead to take two seriously injured people to fly them to Christchurch but someone said there 7 people involved in the crash and one was pronounced dead at the scene.
The air ambulance flew back south but the road remained closed for several more hours due to the accident scene investigation work. Our bus ended up turning around and took us back the The Store where there was food, beverages and toilets, although the food and beverages were on our own expense.
We walked down to the beach and Price and Ciara even dipped their feet into the western Pacific waters.
Price had a sausage roll and Ciara had a salmon quiche while Ben and Janet shared a fish and chips. The restaurant had very high quality food, but it was also a bit expensive.
They stayed open late so all the travelers stranded by the accident could get some dinner and use the bathrooms. It looked like traffic had started moving so we piled into the bus at 8:30pm and headed back down the road. Unfortunately it was a false alarm because the traffic we saw was from people turning around and deciding to take the 6 hr 45 min circular detour route.
We were stuck well after nightfall. Fortunately we had fairly clear skies so we all got to get another look at the Southern Cross above the horizon to the south.
The bus driver kept the bus running for AC and heating. We were concerned we might run out of fuel idling for hours, but traffic did start to move at 11pm. It was still stop and start because the backup was many miles long.
Princess cruises guarantees that their excursions will get passengers back to the ship or get them to the next port of call. They assured the driver at 3pm that they would hold the ship for us but that was not knowing that the delay was going to be more than 8 hours. We got concerned at 10pm when the driver came through and asked if any passengers had medications they needed to take and what cabin numbers they were in. We became a bit concerned they would send room stewards to collect our meds and drop them off on the dock in Picton and depart without us.
We’ll we got the bad news at 11:15pm just as we drove past the car wreck site that the ship was forced to leave the dock and that our luggage would meet us in an accommodation in the city of Blenheim, which is very near Picton. We wondered how they managed that.
We arrived at The Scenic Hotel in Blenheim about midnight. In the lobby, all we found was one backpack with C502 tagged on it and C504 on a second backpack. There were no suitcases for either room. Ciara’s backpack had her laptop in it with one of Price’s shirts, one underwear for Price and one pair of shorts. They grabbed one dress for Ciara and nothing else. She needed her glasses but she fortunately had a spare daily wear contacts set in her backpack.
Our backpack had only one casual shirt and dress slacks for Ben, one dress top and casual leggings for Janet, no socks and no underwear. They did grab a ziplock bag with Ben’s pill refill supply, but not the daily pill tray. Ben needed his retainer which was in the bathroom.
They did not pack any chargers at all.
Princess did have an emergency overnight bag for each passenger containing a Princess robe, slippers, and disposable toothbrush and razor.
At the very least, we will have to spend tonight and tomorrow night in hotels because the ship is at sea a full day tomorrow. It is scheduled to arrive in Tauranga the day after tomorrow.
We received no information about what was going to be the plan for getting us back on the ship. All we were told is the breakfast in the morning and tonight’s room were covered by Princess. Breakfast is from 7am to 10am. We hope a Princess representative or guide hired by Princess will brief us tomorrow at breakfast.
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