Picton and the Marlborough Sounds

2nd December 2010 – Day 6

At the time of writing, I am sat in our campervan pitched in Momorangi Camp Ground overlooking the beach, bay and lushly vegetated hills on the opposite side. The only thing impeding my view is Jonathan; but as he’s at the kitchen bench making an omelette for our lunch, I’ll let it pass. He has suddenly taken charge of the cooking whilst we’ve been away. He says it’s because it’s more mechanical as it’s outside. I’m just enjoying the moment while it lasts.

We arrived at the campsite late yesterday afternoon. It’s run by the department of Conservation Campsite network which seem to been run by the government. They are more basic than private ones you pay more for but as we’ve been pitching in a beach side car park for the two nights previous to this, it’s nice to be somewhere we that I feel we are meant to be.

Since we’ve arrived, we’ve made friends with a pair of House Sparrows and a couple of ducks who came looking for food and have settled under the van.  Jon’s called the ducks Thelma and Louise although we’re not sure if Louise is a juvenile male as (s)he keeps chasing an adult male away from Thelma and has a brighter yellow beak and feet. At what age do juveniles change their plumage I wonder, as she seems fully grown. Thelma’s quite greedy and Louise seems to like to make sure she’s had her fill before she takes any food so it’s kind of like (s)he’s looking out for her.

So all was quite blissful here this morning and Jon was sat outside enjoying his cornflakes and strawberry yoghurt (he’ll try anything once… I don’t think it was a great success as his description when  asked was ‘like lumpy cold puke’) when all of a sudden he yelped and jumped out of his chair as something ran under the van. “Descent in the ranks so early in the relationship?”, I wondered. How could Thelma and Louise turn on us so quickly? However, with further inspection we discovered a chicken-like thing which we don’t know whether is wild or just a NZ chicken. Either way, it must have thought Jon’s little toe was a worm or something as I’ve never seen him move so fast – absolutely hilarious!

Last night we went looking for a waterfall on the campsite but took a wrong turning and hot-footed it up to the top of the hill for half an hour. The vegetation on the hills here is amazing. It is so dense that you have no choice but to stick to the marked paths and the trees are subtropical. Marching through the thick undergrowth was a bit like an episode of LOST, our ears were pinned back listening to any sound of the black smoke.  It was getting dark by the time we reached the top which opened out to glorious views of the bay below but of course we hadn’t taken the camera! Jon made us jog back down so we’d reach the bottom before it was totally dark. That lifted my spirits as it reminded me of pretending to be cars and racing down the path to the beach in Carbis Bay (Cornwall) with my brother when we were little. I couldn’t believe how dark it was underneath the canopy at the lower levels – absolutely pitch black even though there was still light outside.

We only had to wait a little longer before we could hunt for glow worms along the stream edge just inside the canopy. Neither of us had seen them before and they were just amazing, twinkling on and off in the darkness. Jon was a bit freaked out by them as he said they looked like eyes in the dark but I like to think they’re just bugs lighting the way for the other bugs to get on with their business.

I’m not sure what we’re going on to do from here. I think that we might be just chilling for today and possibly going to explore Picton and the rest of the Sounds over the next few days. Picton has a Museum explaining about colonial times and there is also an old boat in the dry dock which brought convicts to Australia and emigrants to New Zealand. It’s also getting hotter out there so I might go for a swim in the bay! – but you’re frightened of starfish Helen!