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Sunday 19th May
I woke up before my alarm after some strange dreams but I dozed for a while once my alarm had gone off. At 8am I got out of bed, showered, dressed and backed up my bags. Once I was set I went to the kitchen to sort my food for the day and have breakfast. I just packed a few snacks and some water. I took some fish that I cooked and put it in a bag along with some crayfish for my dinner. I told others about the fish but no one but Celine seemed bothered. I had some kiwi and crumpet for breakfast, the golden kiwi were delicious and not as sharp as normal kiwis. Once fed, I collected my bags, checked the room and took my key back. As we waited for Rob to arrive back with the bus (he had gone to pick some others up), we decided to take the last 2 crayfish with us, as it was stupid to leave them there.
We pilled into the bus and we set off. It was a beautiful morning even at 9am. As we drove down the coast there was a sea mist over the hills lightened by the morning sun. We had only been travelling for about 30mins when we stopped off at a waterfall and sea lions across the road on the sea front. As we walked through the trees along the track to the waterfall it soon became clear that the stream had some visitors. In the winter the New Zealand seal pups (actually sea lions) came up stream to rest away from predictors and came back to the beach once every 3 days for feeding. The young pups were so playful in the clear water. At first there were a few in the water just swimming around looking thoroughly content swimming around, then there were a few on the rocks and one right on the walking track. It was hard not to stop and just take photos, but as you carried on walking you saw more and more. As we came to the actual waterfall, in the plunge pool there were hundreds (a slight exaggeration, but the pool was full) of pups. Some were swimming, some were jumping, some were pruning, some were just posing and a few were fighting in pairs just in the shallows. It was an incredible sight to see and completely not what I expected from the waterfall. After taking photos I headed back to the bus. Once I had finished the track the bus wasn't open so I walked across be road and saw some of the sea lions on the beach. There were two older lions which had a good handful of young pups on the sea front following them. They were magical to watch and you could easily waste a lot of time watching them. Eventually as more people came back the bus was soon opened and we were back on the road. We continued to drive towards Picton. We stopped around 10.30am for some fuel and people grabbed tea and food. I decided not to get anything and save the pennies. I did post a birthday card at the station. There was some free wifi at the cafe so we all jumped on. I checked my emails and was happy to see I had a few emails. We didn't have long enough for me to do anything else, but I did have a lot of notifications from Facebook.
Back on the bus we continued to drive. We slowly drove away from the coast and in land. We were soon driving through a flat plane with mountains all around. I dozed a little on the bus but not as much as previous days, and I watched the scenery go past thinking about friends and my trips.
We arrived in Blenheim around 12pm where a couple of people jumped off and we gained another passenger. From here it was only 20mins onto Picton. Once in this small port town, Rob dropped is off at the hostel (for some reason he wasn't taking people up to Auckland, he was doing another loop of the South Island). A few people were jumping off here, some were just looping around the South Island, Ben and Olivia got off too to have a day here before heading to Wellington. I had decided to stay in Picton too, I thought it would break up 4 nights in Wellington and I quite fancied a quieter day and evening. I jumped off the bus, grabbed my bags and checked in.
I was in a room with other Stray people, which was nice. Once I was given a tour of the hostel and I jumped my bags, I thought about the plan for the rest of the day as it wasn't even 1pm yet. The others had gone with people from the bus (they had an hours stop in Picton for lunch before their ferry). I asked in reception about walks and I was recommended a 4 hours round trip to 'The Snout'. I decided to do it, as it would be good for me to do some exercise and some alone time would be good. I had already eaten my banana and nuts on the bus, so I had some crackers with cottage cheese and chicken and an apple for lunch at the hostel along with a cuppa. I then got changed into my walking gear and set off around 1.30pm for my walk. It was a sunny day with some clouds in the sky. I walked over the marina and soon found the path I was meant to be on. It was a lovely walk, it took just over 3 hours in the end. The path went up and down sharply in places and it walked along the coast and toward the Cooks Strait and looked out onto the ocean. It was a very hot day with all the ups and downs. The path was quite slippy at times, obviously there had been some rain recently. The views out were beautiful, seeing the tree covered mountains and hills blend into bays and coves. I made good timing throughout my whole walk. I walked along the waters edge along the lower track to Bob's Bay, but I turned upwards before getting there. I then walked to Queen Charlotte's Point where I had a mini rest in the sun before heading down to the snout which provided a stunning view of the sea. It was quite windy at the end, as the walk was sheltered by trees the whole way. At the end I could clearly see a yacht race occurring at sea and then just off the cliff in the sea there were some large sea lions causally swimming around without a care in the world. I sat for a while here before heading back up the track and the section to Queen Charlotte view was mainly uphill. It was a good walk by the time I got back to the hostel jug after 5pm. The evening was drawing in and I felt like I had done something that afternoon. Once back and un-booted myself I made a cup of tea and sat in the sitting room for a while checking my emails and Facebook (we were given a little free wifi at the hostel). Just before 6pm, I decided to cook dinner. I ate the crayfish whilst preparing dinner, of noodles, mushroom, onion and sea perch. It was a nice meal, and I was quite hungry after my walk. By the time I had finished the others had started cooking. I had some apricots and yoghurt for pudding. I then sat in the lounge and tried to write my diary, although with the fire blazing away it was hard not to drift away from the diary.
After a while I gave up writing and charged my phone. I then wrote my thank you post cards to Del and Kerry, Sue, and Mike and Rona...something I had been meaning to do for a while. Just before I finished the last card the hostel workers brought out a home made apple crumble and ice-cream for pudding. They dished up a good size portion and I had 1/2 a scoop of each ice-cream (hokey pokey and chocolate eclair). It was a lovely pudding, nice and homely. After this I finished off my last card, whilst Olivia, Ben and Hasse played card. I watched them play their game until they finished. Once they were done, Hasse, Ben and I played some poke using hostel business cards. I wasn't very good and was the first to be all out. We played until 9.45pm and then we headed to bed as everyone was tired. We all got changed and into our beds. I was on the top bunk again, although the bed tonight felt weaker and slightly tipable when climbing in and out. It wasn't much after 10.30pm when all the lights were off.
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