Off to Blenheim - not the palace, but nearly!

Thursday 18th. Wow, wow, wow, what a change! But, let's not run before we can walk. Start from the beginning. 

Woke up in our motel in Murchisson to a much better day after rain, thunder and lightning during the night. Supposedly an unusual occurrence here. Not used to having to make our own toast and tea, also, not used to not having someone else to chat with. Not to worry, at least we could get up when we wanted to without worrying about our host waiting for us to appear. 

The drive today was much better insofar as it wasn't raining all the time, just low cloud hanging onto the tops of the trees. For the morning we followed the Buller River until we reached Saint Arnaud. All the way the river was a raging torrent after the heavy rains. We kept stopping so that Brigid could use her video camera but we forgot about the iPad! 

At Saint Arnaud we went to see Lake Rotoiti and have a brief walk around. Signs kept informing us that dogs were not allowed as this was a Kiwi area. Safe to say we didn't see one! We saw fantail, bellbirds, Australia Magpie, blackbird and others we couldn't identify. Plenty of ducks and sandfly! Luckily we have some anti-sandfly spray but one bee in particular seemed to quite like it and wouldn't stop following us. We fled back to the car! 

After that we followed the Wairau River all the way to Blenheim. In places the road was flooded because of the rains. As we got nearer to Blenheim, so the vineyards started to appear. Mile after mile of vines. 

We stopped for a quick sandwich in the centre of town and walked along the riverside through the park. 

Here is the main railway crossing the river. I wonder how old the timbers are. 

We then tried to drive round to Wairau Bar but all access roads were flooded. Instead we went to Rarangi beach. The sea was crashing in and we were just getting ready to spend a half hour on the beach when the wind got up, whipped the sand horizontally along the beach and it started to rain. Back to the car and onto our next B&B. 

I'm not going to say anymore, just look at the pictures. 

Once again we are in heaven. 

If anyone is thinking of coming to New Zealand, go the B&B route, you meet some wonderful people and stay in some very different houses. It's great.