Wednesday, 16 February

We are writing our blog early tonight because we are having a meal cooked for us which will be a rather special experience. It's about 6.30pm and we have already had a glass of a very nice local wine from a vineyard called Tinpot Hut and no doubt there will be more wine later … so that's why I think it's best to write the blog sooner rather than later!

We are now on the South Island in the famous Marlborough wine growing area. One wine we know some friends particularly like is Cloudy Bay and that comes from this area.

Our day started with a quick getaway as we had to drop off our hire car at the ferry terminal and catch the InterIslander ferry from Wellington to Picton on the South Island. So it was goodbye to the North Island where we have had a fantastic time and will have some great memories of our time there for many years to come.

The ferry journey took 3 hours and for the first hour the view was of Wellington and surrounding scenery, then we went across the Cook Straight and into a fjiord-like passage to Picton and the scenery for the final hour was pretty spectacular too! The weather was calm and it was a nice sunny day. At Picton the ferry reversed into the smallest of spaces and the manoeuvre was done with the most amazing precision – we didn't even notice a bump!

We had to leave our RAV4 at Wellington and collect another hire car in Picton and it was a Toyota Rav4 again so we can only think that the Picton office gave us the same type of car as we had dropped off in Wellington, unaware of the double upgrade!! We are quite happy about that as we really enjoyed driving around in it.

Our next destination is a spa lodge a few miles outside Blenheim with panoramic views of the surrounding countryside. It has a solar heated pool (= not heated!!) and lovely terrace area with a jacuzzi and steam room. We are the only guests here tonight and the owners live off site, so have the run of the place to ourselves which is rather nice and so we decided to take the opportunity of having a meal cooked specially for us. So since we arrived mid afternoon, we have actually stopped and chilled out for the longest time since we arrived in New Zealand!