Picton, New Zealand

Wednesday 8^th October 2014

It was an early morning for us today, our tour was set to leave at 7.30 am and involved a cruise on the Queen Charlotte Sound on Beachcomber Fun Cruises, which was very enjoyable and informative, even sighting wildlife in the water and along the shore.

As we were seated in the middle of the boat, it was difficult to get a clear sighting as those with cameras were dominating access to the windows. I never realised till that point how obstructive and self-centred amateur photographers can be. I did take our camera with us, but it remained in its bag during the cruise.

It was really quite liberating to just enjoy the scenery when everyone sat down and listen to our guide tell us the history about the area.

I did make an observation to mum that not many of the passengers were looking overly joyous. (Maybe still recovering from the two rough days at sea or just fed up with being on a cruise/homesick). There are more than 1500 Australians on board out of 2000+.

Oh, by the way it was drizzling with rain as we left our ship, and continued to follow us through the sounds.

We disembarked the Beachcomber boat at a Jetty where buses were meant to be waiting, but alas they were delayed. The bus our group (number 15) were waiting for arrived, with the driver stating it was the ladies shopping for too long which held them up.

We were then driven out of the Sounds area, which was an ever winding road which if it had gone on for much longer, may have led to some nausea for me. (It is ok if you are driving, but as a passenger I noticed it more.

We stopped at The Vines, which is a shopping complex amongst wineries within the Marlborough area. There was an excellent shop (I think it was called the Quilters Barn), which if we had more time, and I had bought some more money would like to have enjoyed looking at the supplies they had to offer.

It was then onto Pollard Park which was lovely seeing the gardens set out, yet another whistle-stop visit.

I felt due to the late arrival of the bus caused our tour to be too rushed and as it was late back to the port, and really wasn’t that enjoyable at the end.

I think I may have mentioned it before, but in my honest opinion the coach tours I have been on this cruise have been disappointing. So much so, I will look into different options for our next cruise. Yes, you will be guaranteed that the ship will wait for you on one of their organised excursions, but I have found there has been a lot of driving and when we do stop it was for a maximum of 15-20 minutes at the most. Very little time if you ask me, when you take into account the majority will rush for the conveniences. I usually left them all to it and attempted to scout for some decent photo opportunities. Also found some stops were lack lustre and we had driven straight past a magical photo opportunity.

I understand that there will be traffic and other delays and time is required to make up for that, but maybe an idea would be to extend the duration of the tour.

Once dropping our bags in our cabin we made our way to the Windjammer for a late breakfast/lunch.

It was only a half day visit to Picton and we were due to depart at 3pm, we made our way out to deck 5 and Starboard to watch our first sail away.

I watched the dock workers release the ropes from the many locations, they called up to us and also waved, and then the ship pulled away from the dock

Mum and I have made a point and effort of making it to all the Headliner Showtime’s in the Aurora Theatre each night, most of them have been very enjoyable and also a couple not so much.

I apologise if my observations may come across as negative, I don’t mean for it to be that way as they are only a small part of a much bigger and wonderful holiday that has been an experience that I will treasure.