March 3 - Seddon to Picton & ferry to Wellington - 55 km

So, we survived the tent last night.  I was up about 2:30 a.m. and had a great view of the Southern Cross and the Milky Way.  The down side was that my Thermorest (hiker's air mattress) leaked so I might as well have slept directly on the ground.  I'm blaming Kye for the Thermorest, as he had pawed it before we left and I guess I only found one of the holes he made.  It's OK pooch, you're still in the good books (unless you've gone after Pat's shoes again).

A great morning, cool, clear and still. We cleaned up the tent, had breakfast with the guys from Vanuatu and headed off.

Just out of town I shot this photo of a riverbed from the bridge.  The soil has changed and looks like it contains a lot more clay now.

Another shot of grassy pasture with spectacular mountains in the background.

We are in serious wine country today, the Marlborough region.  If you check your NZ wine bottles, I'll bet a lot of it comes from here.

Here's a vineyard with rose bushes planted all around it.  I asked Jim (Pedaller's Rest) about this.  He told me they plant the roses to attract bugs as roses are more susceptible to the bugs than the grapes - sort of like canaries in a coal mine.  

You can also see the netting on the grapes.  There is literally hundreds of km of netting strung up.  No wonder they import workers to help out.

The last shot today is of a river valley we passed through.  Note how this is much more steeply cut

than the glaciated valleys I had been showing you earlier.  Steep as it is, they swtill use it for pasture.  They almost need sheep with short legs on one side to be able to walk across this.

We blew into Blenheim easily, stopped for coffee and a goodie and then cruised on into Picton.  It was an easy ride in gentle terrain with two yawner hills, less than 100 meters climb each.

We grabbed the ferry into Picton and are in Wellington now, in the Downtown Backpackers, which used 

to be the Waterloo Hotel.  We are going to be here for 3 days and then will take the train to Auckland.

So, that's about it for cycling.  We've racked up just over 2800 km on this trip.  We may do some day cycling trips, but we're not sure.  I'll try to keep up the blog and I'll finish off the maps I started earlier.