Love Affair with Blenheim

We really did not linger too long in Picton this morning. After taking the dogs for a walk and visiting the local “Bakerijji” (which is the most wonderful bakery we have ever been to), we  travelled the 30kms or so to Blenheim.

The hills around Picton soon gave way to the dry flats of the Blenheim area with acre after acre of vineyards all laden with immature fruit.

We stopped to walk through the town, down by the river and through Seymour park which is alive with vibrant colour. It was only when we stoppped for a coffee that we were told you are not allowed to walk dogs in the town centre. It seems that the towns people don’t mind though because the dogs got lots of pats and cuddles as we walked.

The town itself if quite large and it seems a lot of money has been spent by the local authorities to ensure the place is attractive and well maintained. The people are very friendly and today it was warm and sunny.

We drove out to the Peter Jackson Heritage Aviation Museum, visiting both the World War 1 and World War 2 exhibtions. What a magic place. Weta workshops has been active here too so the displays are great and very similar to those in Te Papa. There is a lot of material on show and a lot of personal stories about individual pilots. I learnt two things in particular:

1. Russia lost 18 million enlisted personnel in the second world war, a huge percentage more than any other country
2. Russia also had teams of female fighter pilots

The World War 2 display ended with you being in a simulation of the bombing of Leningrad which was pretty scary, even though you knew it was a simulation and even though the special effects were only visual and sound, not movement.

 

We decided to camp early today and drove out to a place called Taylors Dam which is supposed to have free camping for motorhomes as well as walks etc. Hopwever, although the motorhome parking was there, everything else was closed off. The lake looked to be burdened with algae, so maybe that was the reason; or maybe they were extending the dam – whatever the reason it wasn’t an attractive camp site so we back tracked and are camped up in a POP stop in a vineyard beside the Wairau River. There are 5 other MCA members here and we arrived just on happy hour to be treated to whitebait fritters, courtesy of our hosts. We had a lovely hour or so with the others, and received lots of advice on places to go and plenty of horror stories about the sandflies we will encounter.

Unfortunately the river is very muddy from rainfall up in the lakes area, but we were able to watch the local breast cancer ladies practicing their dragonboating up and down the river.