Our Great Adventure: Picton Day 180 17/03/2015

The weather was a bit inclement when we woke. We planned to head to Picton today after driving to Farewell Spit, the most northerly point on the south island. We packed up and headed west. It was only a short drive from Pohara, past Collingwood and the access point for the Heaphy Track, another of New Zealand's great walks. Farewell Spit is a bleak and exposed wetland and it certainly looked very bleak when we arrived in low cloud and light drizzly. It's a renowned bird sanctuary, the summer home for thousands of migratory waders. It's a 35km stretch of beach with crescent shaped sand dunes and a vast low tide salt marsh. After stopping for a view across the marsh we went to the visitors centre where we read about the frequent beaching of whales in the area. There's clearly a lot of debate about the rights and wrongs of human intervention to refloat the whales. It's heart wrenching to see the pictures of the stranded whales and knowing the distress they are in. The expression on the volunteer in the photo below very much portrayed how we felt. The larger whales are too big to be refloated and eventually, because they have no bone structure like a human skeleton, their weight crushes them to death if they are not put down. There was an interesting small exhibition on the work of the Department of Conservation and local volunteers to refloat beached whales. From Farewell Spit we headed back through Motueka where we'd stayed a few days ago and on round the Tasman Bay through Richmond to Nelson, stopping for a late lunch at a funky, "boho" cafe. After lunch we continued east through Havelock and over the 35km Queen Charlotte Drive to Picton. The road runs alongside the Marlborough Sounds giving wonderful views out to sea and of the numerous hill clad islands. As we dropped into Picton it was impossible to miss the Queen Mary 2 docked in Shakespeare Bay. We checked in at the campsite and then walked through the marina into the town centre, spotting a very large stingray as we walked over the bridge, to buy a few provisions. Back at the van we started to do some planning for Chile. The sun was still shining but the temperature had definitely dropped and we had dinner in the 'warmth' of the van.