First, I've put a link to a map of NZ to the left of the blog. Now you can see where we are.
From Kaikoura we drove to Picton. Again, the weather was great, and again the scenery was too. Picton's further north than Wellington (the capital, on the North Island). We'd not realised this as our map shows the island separately. The ferry leaves Picton to go to Wellington, but we weren't there for that. We're doing a loop of the South Island before we touch the North. We were in Picton to do a walk on the Queen Charlotte Track. This is a 71km walking track (Kiwis call it "tramping". It's "walking".) The walk takes three or four days, and boat companies will take your luggage between your accommodation for you. Not a hard walk and some of the accommodation's very nice. However, we were only doing a day walk. Aren't we lazy?
We both slept very badly the night before our walk. We both had bad tummies! We blamed the free apple crumble and ice cream the hostel had given us. Grrr! We didn't feel too bad on Saturday morning, so we got up early and go a ferry to Ship Cove to start the walk. Captain Cook landed at Ship Cove a few times, and there's a monument to this at the cove. We walked for miles in glorious views of Queen Charlotte's Sound.
(By the way, we'd been wondering what the difference between a Sound and a Fiord is. We found this on the net. Don't say you never learn anything on this blog.
A fiord is a glaciated valley - typically narrow and steep-sided - that has been flooded by the sea after the glacierÂ’s retreat. A sound, on the other hand, is a river valley flooded by the sea following a rise in sea levels or depression of the land, or a combination of both.)
An hour or so after we set off we reached Resolution Bay. A few people had advised us to stop there at the B&B for a coffee and muffin. The muffins are "world famous" apparently. The woman running the placewas chattingg to friends, so her 10-12 year old daughter served us. I had the weakest coffee I'd had in a long time and the muffin was a pathetic, dry tiny mess. I was not impressed. This muffin had been the carrot drawing me on to Resolution Bay. I'd have preferred a carrot. It was SO disappointing.
Thankfully the walk was marvelous. We saw lots of wekas - small flightless birds which my friend Simon says "p*ss on kiwis". I didn't see them do that, but then there weren't any kiwis around.
The ferry picked us up about six hours after it had dropped us off. We were shattered, especially having had very little sleep the night before. We fancy doing a four day walk sometime, and that track seems like an easy one to do.
Anne's tummy took a turn for the worse on Sunday, and we abandoned a local walk we'd planned. She slept a lot of the day and was very sad.
On Monday, we left Picton to head west to Nelson. On the way we stopped at Havelock - "Greenshell mussel capital of the world". There we splashed out on a (greenshell) mussel lunch! Anne had been feeling better, though I wonder now if she was only saying that so I didn't deny her the mussels she'd been looking forward to. A few hours after lunch she was ill again!
Kill Bill
We watched Kill Bill: Volume One at the flicks in Christchurch. The film was apparently cut in two so that Quentin Tarantino didn't have to cut anything out of it. I'd argue that there was a good ten minutes that could have been happily cut out of the first volume. The second film, I've heard, slows things down a bit - I hope so.
I thought the idea to split the films was stupid, but I was ready for the first one to end when it did, so wouldn't have fancied another 90 minutes. QT seems to be trying to get away from his forte - cool dialogue. He's done this byputtingo cool dialogue into this film, and no good dialogue either. Shame.
I've seen a fair few martial arts films, and this film has some very classy fights in it. The final fight just goes on far too long. Lots of it is good. Some really nice touches. Much of it seems like the sort of thing TV's Mat C and I used to make on video at school though. Either Mat and I were undiscovered geniuses, or QT is a school kid messing about to make himself and his mates laugh.
The violence has been criticised, but it's all comic book stuff. The only bit I winced about was when a man got his head slammed in a door.
Like the second Matrix film, it's hard to review this half-film, but at the moment I'd say three stars.
We also watched Elizabeth on video in Picton. I'd not seen this and fancied it. I quite enjoyed it. Three stars.