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NZ 2015: Seals and wine
posted : Saturday, February 27, 2016
Had lots planned for the day so once again, woke up early, had breakfast and bid our hosts goodbye before they left for work. Off we go again in our trusty little red car.
Journey up to Kaikoura isn't a long one, taking about 2 hours. There actually isn't much to see, though parts of the drive reminds me of the drive along the west coast during our first couple of days in NZ. Lol I think novelty wore off already too.
Looking extremely burnt from the day before. Actually the point of this photo is the absolute lack of space at the passenger seat at this stage of the trip.
Reached Kaikoura at about noon, and popped by the iSite first to check out the tracks available..then strolled in town looking for a lunch place. Chris wanted to try crayfish at first - Kaikoura is famous for its seafood - but we decided it's too expensive in the end. Eventually settled for fish and chips (again lol). Initially we wanted to check out the weekend market in an open green next to a kindergarten, but by the time we finished lunch and headed over most of the stalls are packing up already. Oh well.
Kaikoura town.
Salmon and chips lunch.
Gorgeous scenery as always
Rocky beach area
One of the popular activities in Kaikoura is whale watching but we didn't have time for that - and we did catch a bit of whale already when we were in Milford heh. Headed off to the southern (I think?) end of the town where the tracks were. Picked the shortest one lol due to time constraints...even then we didn't really finish it and headed back to sea level to visit the seals!
Wefie while trekkinf
Oh hi!
About 4pm by the time we left Kaikoura at the end of the very short visit - and drove another 2 hours up north towards Picton. This part of the drive was even more...boring, for the lack of a better word, with mostly barren landscape and no road kills even lol.
Checked in at Sequoia Backpackers Lodge Picton. Reminds me of the Te Anau one in the sense that we got a cabin, though this one comes with attached bathroom. I also remember this day being one of the colder days in NZ and we literally sat around the heater trying to keep warm. Dropped our stuff and headed over to the kitchen to cook dinner. At this point in time it's more about finishing up whatever supplies we have so we repeated the pasta dinner though this time with Alfredo sauce. And the hostel's specialty is warm chocolate pudding served at 7.30pm. Wheee.
The room
Warm chocolate pudding with ice cream yums!
Up early the next morning and attempted to have breakfast at a bakery but turns out it's closed on Sundays. No matter, we settled down for breakfast at one of the cafes in the town centre. Then popped by the picturesque lakeside looking out to Marlborough Sound. 
Loving these jetty pictures
Picton town
Looking out to Marlborough Sound
Next is an obligatory trip to the iSite, spotted a souvenir shop nearby and decided to check that out too, coz by this time we are in a last minute shopping frenzy hahahah. And kind of got conned into visiting an aquarium next to it which isn't much to shout about. 
Overlooking Picton
and Marlborough Sound
That's how windy the road is....
Stopped by Makana Chocolate Factory on our way to Wairau River Winery for lunch. Actually even though we had a lunch reservation but we are still pretty much undecided at this point in time and are looking for other options at the wide variety of wineries along this stretch of road. But got lazy and just headed to Wairau River in the end heh. 
Popped by another winery first, before deciding to just head to Wairau.
Lunch was pretty good actually. Though I am pretty sure I would enjoy it more if it wasn't for the diarrhea I had (which had lasted for a good day and a half at this point and had me visiting the toilet at every opportunity) and the fact that I am pretty sick of western food by this time. And I was hoping the acidity in wine would actually kill off whatever virus I had in my tummy hahahah not sure if that was supposed to work.
Lunch
Now that I look at it again, looks pretty yummy..
Cheers!
And that was actually the last activity proper in the Marlborough region. Pumped petrol, and drove back to Christchurch with a quick stopover at Kaikoura. And discovering that we left behind way more things than we intended at Sequoia - had intended to leave behind extra groceries like garlic, butter and what not but somehow each of us got sloppy - Sam left behind a pair of jeans, Chris a jacket and me a bag of cookies which I wanted to bring back to SG (okay least damage hahaha).
Last leg of the trip!
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