Today we joined the mail man on his run through the beautiful Marlborough Sounds; the only licensed New Zealand Post Rural delivery service by water in the Queen Charlotte Sound.
The morning mists had cleared by lunch time when we set off from Picton harbour, and the only remnants of it were in the distance.
We boarded the boat with the mail man, and saw he was full for his run today up the Tory Channel and Queen Charlotte Sound. The free service is financed by NZ Post, and delivers everything from mail, groceries, school work, and tumble dryers!
We set off into the Sound heading into the Tory Channel to start our rounds. Out of approx 500 houses that line the shores only 90 are occupied year round. First stop was a retired Judge who took in groceries and mail. Next we passed a salmon farm (below left).
The people we called at were not all retirees; there were farmers, writers, caretakers (for the holiday homes), conservationists, and bed and breakfast owners (as the 71km Queen Charlotte Track runs parallel with the Sound). At the far end of the Tory Channel we stopped at what was formerly the 2nd largest settlement in NZ, a former whaling station comprising of 5 houses…now a modern day working farm. At this point it was such a clear day that we could see across to the wind farm on the bottom of the North Island, and also saw the 2 Bluebridge ferries passing each other.
Next stop heading back towards Queen Charlotte Sound was at a small bay where a man was building his own property…with a cracking view of the green shell mussel farm.
The rows of buoys signal that there are shelves underneath with young mussels on, when the buoys sink deeper into the water it means that the mussels have grown big enough (and heavy enough) to be harvested.
We then travelled up the Queen Charlotte Sound to the remote end where Ship Cove is hidden. We disembarked to walk to the point where Captain Cook moored his boat no less than 5 times.
A blast of the ships horn signalled for us to jump back on board, where we decided to stay in doors for the last leg back to Picton, as the temperature had plummeted throughout the journey.
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