02 March 2007

Picton: 'Sounds' better than it is

After nearly 5 months of traveling we've used a lot of different modes of transport but we had to wait until our journey from Wellington to the south island of New Zealand for our first ferry*. The journey took just over 3 hours to reach Picton, our next destination. The last hour was particularly stunning as we cruised through the Marlborough sounds, a collection of coves and bays that formed when the sea flooded the deep valleys after the last ice age. 'The Sounds' are pretty spectacular, although I think it can only be properly be appreciated from the air - or in our case, from aerial photos on postcards. Nevertheless we did at least try to see as much as we could by foot.


The Sounds are home to the Queen Charlotte Track, one of New Zealand's 'Great Walks'. Unfortunately we had neither the time nor the equipment to tackle all of the 71km, but we did walk a part of it by arranging a boat to transport us to the track and back. We were dropped off at 'Ship Cove', so called because it was one of the first places where Captain Cook stopped and he returned there several times. The 5 hour walk was quite hilly but we were rewarded with superb views of the many bays and coves.



Picton itself is a strange little place; with it being the hub of such a beautiful area, as well as the port of entrance to the South Island for many visitors, you would expect it to have some form of tourism enterprise. However it seems that this fishing village has never really got to grips with its potential; what few tourist attractions there are sound extremely dull, the souvenir shops are still stocked like it's the 1980s and there wasn't one nice restaurant in town (not that we were looking!). Even when we went to the 'Endeavour Express' booking office to arrange our boat to the walking track we were astounded by the lack of professionalism when the manager was surprised by one of the walks in her own brochure. She then decided that, after telling us how nice the walk sounded and writing our tickets, we wouldn't be able to do the it because it didn't fit in with her boat timetables. She was even more taken aback when I produced a discount voucher, although her surprise soon turned to confusion when I told her that 10% off $110 is $99. I really couldn't be bothered to argue with her when she charged us $100.

Thankfully, we didn't need to rely on any other tourist organisations for the rest of our time in Picton, as we mostly did walks in and around the town. The first of these took us up through a hillside scenic reserve to a viewpoint overlooking the town and harbour. This would have been much more enjoyable if we hadn't been deafened by Cicadas (inch-long winged bugs). It was much worst for Emily though as they seemed to enjoy flying into her head on a fairly regular basis. We also walked out on a long and thin peninsular called The Snout. Although this was much tougher and longer than our hostel receptionist had led us to believe, we did get some great views.



Our experience in Picton was probably not helped by the number of kooks in our YHA hostel. We shared our 4-bed dorm with a twenty-something long-haired German guy with a black tooth and body odour issues, and his mother who, according to Emily, 'could have played the witch in Hansel and Gretel'. There was also a middle-aged Welshman who insisted on "singing" very loudly along to any song he knew on the radio (and a few that hew didn't), a pair of elderly English ladies who had a Miss nice and Miss nasty thing going on, and a deaf Australian who kept shouting at everybody because he'd missed his train and therefore ruined his holiday plans. Even the manageress, though very nice, was more than a little unhinged.

I apologise that this entry has turned into a bit of a rant. The speed that I've written it (compared to my usual snail-pace writing) is evidence of the frustration that Picton inspired. Now that I've got it all out though I should probably try and remember our time exploring the Marlborough Sounds rather than in the town itself. Besides, most of my anger probably stems from the fact that we didn't get to play mini-golf just because the stupid owner closed up early when we went to play on our final night. Bastard!

Chris

*As Emily has just pointed out, we did go on a ferry in Hong Kong. However this was the first time that we had used one as a means of continuing our travels.

posted by Chris and Emily @ 03:50