Picton Foreshore with a marina, park and a line of phoenix palms.
The 'Edwin Fox'
Sue dragged Steve, somewhat reluctantly at first, to see the 'Edwin Fox', the hulk of a 1600-tonne vessel that has been lovingly restored and preserved. It's the ninth oldest remaining ship in the world, and is the sole survivor of the fleets that once brought migrants to New Zealand. An 'Indiaman' built in Calcutta in the 1830s, it also was a troop carrier in the Crimean War, a convict transporter ship to Australia and later an early example of a ship storing frozen meat for export.
The small museum explains the life and history of the ship.
Below is a list of convicts transported on one voyage to Australia including from Birmingham!
Standing on what remains of the deck you get a sense of what it must have been like to sail.......
.......how it was built.........
.......but the best bit is below decks in the large open hold.
The Picton Mail Boat
One of the best ways to see the Queen Charlotte and Pelorus sounds is to take a trip on the Rural Mail Run. (It was after we had set out that the driver said he had heard mention of an earthquake in Christschurch. For the rest of the trip we had no mobile phone signal, so were unaware of the texts being sent to us checking on how -and where- we were.) The 4-hour trip takes you to otherwise-inaccessible wharves and jetties, delivering the only mail of the week and a few perishable groceries.
We passed the Cook Strait ferry.
Approaching the first jetty.
This lady was returning to her permanent home of the past 22 years.
Beautiful yacht for sale: a mere NZ$ 1.8 million.
A salmon farm that had to be netted at the top to prevent the birds eating the fish, and fenced at the side to keep out seals.
We spotted a seal in the water.
The mail is delivered.....
......and collected.
Some people have to come quite a way to get to the jetty.
This family came to collect the usual supplies plus building materials.
Then another man turned up....
....in time to get aboard with his bags for the trip back to Picton.
We sailed on to Ship Cove where there was a 15 minute stop that enabled us to have a look around. Just across a channel from Motuara Island, this cove marks the bay where Captain Cook spent a total of 168 days during his three trips to New Zealand.
We didn't have time to see the waterfall this time, but Steve took a picture of the path (below).
Then home to Picton.
