The waiting game

After six weeks exploring the Marlborough Sounds and Abel Tasman our time here is coming to an end. We now feel that we’ve seen most of what the area has to offer and are looking forward to heading northward for a change of scenery.

We’re both looking forward to the journey north with excitement and nervous anticipation. The journey from Marlborough to Gisborne, around 300 miles, will probably be the most challenging stretch of coastline on our entire trip. The weather between here and Gisborne is notoriously bad. The good news is that we have plenty of time to wait for a decent weather forecast. The bad news is that requires a lot of patience. For example, the Cook Strait experiences a high percentage of days per year with gale force winds, which means there could be a lot of waiting involved. In addition to the weather, we’ll have to deal with a straight 48hr+ sail, and taking it in turns to sleep or keep watch, something that we’ve not done before. We’re expecting it to be both a physically and mentally challenging couple of days.

Luke and Helen on board Desolina

Still, we’re making the most of our last few days in Marlborough. We were joined by some friends, Helen and Luke, from Wellington for Waitangi weekend, and had a great couple of days with them showing them how to sail Desolina. We sailed out to Endeavour Inlet on the first day from Picton and took them for a walk up to the viewpoint on the Queen Charlotte track overlooking both Ship Cove and Resolution Bay on the second day. Luke brought his drone and GoPro camera with him and we got some excellent aerial shots of Desolina.

Still footage from the Drone

We’ve also been exploring a few of the coves we didn’t make it to last time around, mostly around Grove Arm. We had a nice day at Lochmara Lodge for a spot of lunch and a walk. I would highly recommend Lochmara as a place to stop off for a day trip or a longer stay, especially if you have young children. The lodge has extensive grounds with sculptures and a wildlife recovery centre. In particular, we had great fun feeding the Kakariki, one of New’s Zealand native parakeets.

Feeding the Kakariki

Punga people at Lochmara Lodge