Picton - North End of the South Island

The ferry ride from Wellington (at the south end of the north island) to Picton (at the north end of the south island) took about three hours, with about half of the time spent on open water and half spent going through fairly narrow straits.  Picton is a harbor town of about 4000 people, nestled in the northeastern bays and fjords of the south island.

We started walking with our backpacks through the rain toward our next backpackers, and were quickly stopped by a woman who very kindly gave us a ride up to our destination - Jugglers' Rest Backpackers ( http://www.jugglersrest.com/ ).  Jugglers' Rest is run by Nikki (who does juggling, poi balls, and fire shows) and Bruce (who runs a local theater building).  They are kind, friendly, interesting, and welcoming - they share their house with you instead of having you stay there.  Two nights was not enough - we'll be back there next time we're in Picton.

On Wednesday morning we hiked out on the Upper and Lower Bob's Bay tracks along the harbor, which gave us good views of the harbor, including the incoming ferries.  This is a fairly well used track - we passed several other hikers and a few trail runners as well. In the afternoon we hiked up to Humphries Reservoir, through lush green forest soaked by the previous day's rain.  The ferns and lichen really stood out, and we also saw many tui, bellbirds, fantails and chaffinch.



On Thursday we did a little more hiking, walking along the Waikawa track on the edge of the city.  Unfortunately, time was again short, and we went back to Jugglers' Rest for the final time to pick up our packs and head for the train station, where we took the Coastal Pacific train down to Christchurch.