April 2, Way-stop in Picton

The morning began at a very reasonable time. We awoke about 7:30 and leisurely went about getting dressed and getting our things together, before heading downstairs to breakfast. It is hard to overstate how lovely and charming the Fyffe Country Lodge is. The pictures I will show below do not begin to do justice to its beauty and charm. Patrise and I said last night after dinner, if we knew before what we had learned in the past 12 hours, we would have planned to stay at least one more day in Kaikoura, just to rest and relax at the Fyffe. Before breakfast, we went outside to take in the crisp, clean fresh air and to stroll the grounds. In back of the lodge were three “paddocks” (Kiwi for fields) with different groups of deer fenced in. It turns out that not only do New Zealanders raise sheep and cattle, they also raise deer! It is not unusual to see fields of fenced-in deer roaming the countryside. However, the fences for deer are considerably taller than those for sheep or cow paddocks. So when we walked outside to stroll the grounds, here are the views we had.

Breakfast was delightful, there was only one other couple having breakfast at the same time we were. The proprietors, Chris Rye and Colin Ashworth, were so genial, warm and hospitable. We had the opportunity to speak more with them this morning, as they greeted us for the day and prepared our breakfast. They have owned and operated the Fyffe for over 25 years, and their love and devotion is evident in every aspect of the place. It is immaculately clean, it is well decorated and furnished, and everything works like a charm. And as I said, the hostess and host provide a very convivial and down-home spirit. Here is a picture of Chris and Colin.

After saying goodbye to our hosts, our taxi driver took us to the Kaikoura railway station, where we waited in the platform for the train to pull in. Shortly thereafter, the train arrived, and we got our tickets, had our luggage loaded, then we boarded our car. Although it was a clean and comfortable car again, this one did not have a table for the passengers like yesterday’s train. It did have pull down tray tables that were attached to the seat in front of us like on an airplane. The train departed Kaikoura, heading northward, and we proceeded to take in the South Island coastal scenery for the next 2-1/2 hours, as both of us nodded in and out of conscientiousness. Here are scenes from the coast, as seen from the train between Kaikoura and Picton.

We arrived at the Picton train station and immediately noticed several differences between this town and the one we had just departed. Although they have roughly the same population – 4,000 for Picton, 3,500 for Kaikoura – Picton had a much greater commercial and industrial base; it had many more visitors; and it has considerably more disposable income. The commercial and industrial area had many cranes, warehouses, and heavy vehicles dotting the various lots near the train station. The larger number of visitors could be detected, not only by the number of people walking around, but also by the larger number of retail shops. The higher disposable income was evidenced by the yachts in the harbor, the numbers of art galleries and fine jewelry stores, the real estate: homes selling and bought for $699,000 to over $1,000,000 NZ dollars (or $450K to $625K U.S dollars). We probably did not see a single home in Kaikoura which merited that level of value. It was a working-class town, without a doubt. Not poor, but far from wealthy.

A shuttle took us from the station to our hotel, the Picton Yacht Club. Since we could not get into our rooms before 2pm – it was about 12:40pm at the time – we left our luggage and walked around the town and the waterfront. We stopped to have lunch at a small, quaint caffe on Wellington Street, bought ice cream and gelato next door, then continued strolling the down, stopping for a brief while at a park next to the harbor front. We could easily see the ferry we will ride tomorrow, to go from Picton to Wellington, the next stop on our journey. It is this same ferry that has given rise to a lot of Picton’s wealth and commerce. Even so, the ferry between the two islands (North and South) only began in the early 1960’s. It is now an indispensable lifeline between these two major parts of the island nation that is New Zealand.

After lunch, ice cream, and a pleasant stroll, we returned to the hotel and settled into our rooms. Despite a frustrating start, we were able eventually to get wifi working and to get the washing machine working. I worked on catching up on our blog entries, while Patrise washed and dried our dirty laundry and spent time reading a John Grisham novel.

We will soon go to dinner at the hotel restaurant, settle in for the remainder of the evening, then plan for our trip on the ferry tomorrow and to Wellington.

End of the day. Tomorrow on to Wellington; and the day after, the tour of many of the Lord of the Rings film sites!