Three Days in the South Island

Found in the Sea turns tourist, and the only knitting is Zoe's Olearia cardy that we lost in Nelson.

An early morning ferry out of Wellington.

What the heck is in that slushy stuff?  Lucky it was a smooth crossing, I'd hate to see that come back up.



A vineyard lunch, floating lemon leaf boats. 

Allan Scott in Marlborough, a favourite stop for us on our trips out to Golden Bay.

The children approved of our accommodation.

Guests are encouraged to forage in the garden!

 SO many rabbits, we saw dozens every day.  Not a good thing, rabbit numbers are getting completely out of control again (now they're all immune to RCV), but still they are so darn cute.

 If it looks hot in these photos, it's because it was. 

I retreated to the bedroom to play with the Hipstamatic camera on my iPhone.

Next morning we drove to Nelson for my Grandmother's funeral.  Hymns, bagpipes, tea and sausage rolls in the church hall.  I do wonder who's going to make the tea in a few years time - those church ladies are all getting very old....

Afterwards we took the kids to the playground at Tahuna beach.  I love all the old equipment that's been there since I was a baby, but I was not happy to find the rocket slide has been taken away!   The Hipstamatic seemed the way to go, because I swear it's permanently 1973 at Tahuna beach.

Ryan's sulky because he wants to sit on the big seal.

It was stinky hot again, and I just couldn't keep the kids out of the water.  Warm water!  The sea where we live is always freeeeeezing, but the shallow Nelson Bays are gorgeously warm.

Driving back to Marlborough should have taken about an hour and a half, but there was an accident on the road over the Rai Saddle, and we were stuck in the heat for about an hour.  Very sobering, it was a head-on collision by the look of the wreckage, they had to bring in the rescue helicopter, and cut the roof right off one of the cars.

Back in Marlborough it was 32 degrees so we retreated to the shade with a bottle of wine and took photos of each other ;-) 

Cats apparently, not sheep.

I (foolishly and against all experience) hoped the summery weather might last forever, but this week my daughter has gone on school camp, so of course it's cold and wet.