093 – Picton and the Mail Boat

It is indeed the point a lot of people enter the south island, and yes, a lot of people rent a car and leave right away, but the locals think people should stay around for a bit because they have a lot to offer.

I did not plan to stay, but I had no idea what my plan was other than to arrive. Which I already did.

So, today I knew I needed to get on a bus and move on, but having no idea how to do that, I again turned to the manager of the hotel.
He found me a room so I could stay another night, which was conveniently the room I was staying in. He then sent me to the ‘I site’ to help me plan the rest of my trip.
I had no idea what an ‘I site’ was, but with the directions, I headed down the road.
‘I Site’ turned out to be a country wide network of people who help you plan tours and get places. I is for information, not the organ to see things with, but it certainly opened my eyes.
I was going to simply book a cruise on the mail boat for the day, and a bus ticket out of Picton for tomorrow since I had missed the bus for today. 45 minutes later, I had hotels, tours, transportation from town to town all the way to Queenstown, where I decided I could get my own room. Emma, my I site tour agent even arranged for a tour in Queenstown of the Milford Sound, so I had something to do there until my flight to Australia. She also gave me addresses of I sites along my path and recommendations of other things to see if I just wanted to wander around.
I almost took Emma home with me as my permanent exclusive tour planner. She politely declined my offer.

With that done, I wandered around town until the mail boat left. After I exhausted that 5 minutes, I wandered down to the dock.
Picton is not a big place, in case you did not pick up on that yet. Nice place, just not big.

So, the Picton Mail Boat is apparently unique to Picton and it is the most famous attraction in town. Essentially, there are a lot of people who live around Queen Charlotte Sound (Totaranui to the Mauri) who can only be accessed by boat. So, the New Zealand Post has a delivery service via boat that takes the mail, packages, groceries… all kinds of stuff to these people.
And, being the entrepreneurs that they are, they decided to take a bigger boat, charge people for the ride and tack on a short tour to their mail route to help offset the costs.

Damn smart idea, honestly.

So while I was waiting on the dock, I met up with Lynn from Scotland who was also a solo woman traveler. She moved to New Zealand and is currently working in Wellington as a nurse, but is out on vacation to see the more of the islands.
Lynn became my boat buddy for this trip, and despite the fact her Scottish accent was so thick I could not make out everything she said, we had a good day.

There were about 40 people on this tour. Given the mail boat goes out twice a day, 6 days a week, they are not hurting for income.
They also shuttle passengers to various places in the sound, such as a couple of remote resorts and stepping off points for the Queen Charlotte Trek, which is a 3 day hike if one goes the whole distance.

The mail boat does give a running commentary on the area as it goes along, and it makes a few stops along the way that are not mail related.
Our first stop was a fishery, where they raise some kind of fish. I honestly had trouble hearing the commentary as I was standing on the top deck in the wind looking for wildlife, but the basic idea is that fish are a huge export item here, and the people who look after the fish stay out here in a dorm like cabin for a few weeks at a time, then go home for a week and rotate through the process.

Honestly, I was more interested in the New Zealand fur seals sitting on each corner of the fish pen than what the skipper was saying or the fish. My first wildlife siting in on the water.
They looked darn uncomfortable to me, but they hang out here in hopes someone will leave a gate or net or whatever open and they can have an easy dinner.

Our next stop was a cove where Captain Cook apparently made 5 visits when he was navigating the world. There was a big monument to Captain Cook at the sight, which is apparently known as ‘Ship’s Cove’ and it is one of the jump off points for the Queen Charlotte trek.

The other fun things at this location, at least for me were the Weka. Had no idea what a weka was, but Lynn knew and was excited to see one, so off we went on a Weka hunt.
They were not hard to find.

The weka, or Māori hen, or wood hen… or if you are smart the Gallirallus australis… is a flightless bird the size of a chicken. It is only found in New Zealand and is part of the rail family.
They are omnivorous. They are both scavengers and predators.

I cannot raise the gumption to be terrified by this animal, no matter how they describe it. Meat eating predator or not, it is a chicken for all purposes.

They eat fruit and invertebrates, eggs, lizards, small mammals and birds, and carrion. So, I am good with that.
They are also not afraid of humans. In fact, they come right up to you and investigate your being for any food particles you might give them.

I was foodless and uninteresting.

But, I was told later that although they are a ‘threatened’ species, which means there numbers are dwindling but not yet endangered, they are are considered a pest for the most part by the locals. They hang out and steal food from gardens, pet food, or even people’s plates.

so, they are the bird equivalent to the monkeys of Asia, or the squirrel of… anywhere. Perhaps crow would be a better simile. The point is, yes native to NZed, but essentially I followed a squirrel around and took pictures of it.
But it was an exotic squirrel for an Iowa girl. Ha.

I suppose I am glad I was either too big, or not appetizing enough to be considered interesting by the weka. I will add that to the ‘things I have going for me’ column.

On the way back to the boat from the weka experience in ships cove, I discovered a ray swimming by the dock.

Wildlife number 3 for this trip. Glad I was on the dock and not in the water, but fun to watch her just gliding around ignoring my camera.

We had yet to see any other humans, or deliver any mail, but as we got underway again, up popped some dolphins.

They followed the boat for a bit, and I think he said these were ‘bull nose’ dolphins, but I am not sure.
I discovered they are very fast, very playful, and very hard to get pictures of. Don’t look to closely. The few pics I did get taht were not entirely blurry are still out of focus.

Yes, I do realize it is about seeing and experiencing and not taking the picture. I am not oblivious to the experience. But I am, after 40 plus years of taking pictures, a creature of habit. No matter how much I want to turn it off and simply look at something, there is always something in the back of my head that says ‘move slightly left;’ or ‘check the light;’ or ‘did you check the shutter speed;’ or ‘damn, where is my bigger lens when I need it;’ that causes me to look at everything through that… lens, for lack of a better word.
I know I will get home and delete most of the pictures I take because what I do lack in experience and knowledge I make up for in volume. Sometimes the volume gets me a good picture, sometimes it is all trash, but the voice, with a camera in hand or not, is always there.
So, yes, I take pictures, but for me it is part of the experience. It is part of the challenge of being there and it is how I relate to the environment around me. Through the lens. The pictures are not for sale, or outside consumption purposes, they are for me. They are my little gold star on the report card in my head that show I went somewhere; did something; and I can look at the proof, good or bad.
I do experience. I do enjoy. I do relax and am in the moment in my own special little way.
And that is the best way I can describe why I take pictures, even though many… most… along the way have said to me ‘put down the camera and enjoy the moment’ or similar things.
By the way, I hate that. I also hate the people who say ‘what are you going to do with the pictures anyway? I have thousands of pictures I never look at on my phone, so put the phone away and live the moment.’
To that I say… true. You do you. I need the barrier. I need the challenge and the reward of the click, even if I never look at the photo again. That gold star in my head is important to me, and none of it is for you.
I also will be taking pictures in my mind if I have the camera or not, so why not take the picture since I lugged this 20 pounds of equipment half way around the world.
Again, perspective is everything.

Anyway… Lynn pointed out the water was full of jellyfish. I was told that it was “sting season” in Australia, and whater activities would be done in a ‘sting suite’ if I chose to partake. I am not clear on where I stand on partaking yet, but I would prefer not to die, and the volume of stinging things I have seen just off the shore on this short mail trip has discouraged me from partaking.

Also very hard to get pictures of, but if you look at all the little white things, those are jellyfish. And Lynn was right. They are everywhere.

We did finally deliver some mail, and I got the best wildlife pic of them all; my daily doggo pic.
He got treats, and did tricks and danced around happily to see the boat and the people. Honestly, it was a highlight.
Sadly, of the 8 stops we made to deliver mail, this was the only doggo. Sigh.

Another thing I learned on this trip was more about the trees and the invasive species.
Logging is a huge industry here, so many, many non native trees have been introduced over the years to support that industry. Apparently these hills were home to sheep farms for a long time until something happened (again, could not hear all of the commentary because I was mentally taking pictures on the bow of the boat) and the farmers were looking for other ways to support themselves.
They thought planting a bunch of trees would be the answer so they did, but the trees were a variety of pine, which changed the acidity of the soil and killed off the brush and… cycle of humans interfering and such.
Then, to get rid of the trees, since they are so remote, apparently people would go up in helicopters and shoot the invading trees with some kind of poison pellet… and many of the trees predictably died.
It was working for a while until a human complained about the noise and such, so now they go in and by hand are removing these invasive trees so the native plants will return. It takes longer, is more dangerous and costs more, but since people complained about the noise but still want the invasive species removed, they do what they can do.
In short, there are a lot of dead trees dotting the landscape of the sounds now. Which is sad, interesting, and a compelling story even if I don’t have all the facts exactly right.

We returned to the shores of Picton around about dinner time, so Lynn and I wandered around and found a place to eat. We apparently found the most local of local pubs to eat in, as the atmosphere was that of walking into an American Legion hall or similar club experience.
The needle in the juke box did not scratch to a halt when we walked in, but there were a lot of ‘oh, the foreigners are here’ looks. None malicious, all kind and everyone was welcoming, but I almost laughed at the feeling, because I knew exactly what they were feeling.

I could not, however pass up a board that boasted ‘Greenlipped Mussels.’ I had no idea if they actually had green lips; if it was a type of algae that grows on the lips; or if it was simply a muscle makeup choice under the sea, but it was enticing enough to enter.
I did not have fish pie, Greenlipped muscles or Guinness stew. I had lamb with mint sauce. Lamb is big here. They are all over the place, so I did have local cuisine. Do not judge.

About midway through the meal, the waitress brought us tickets, which were apparently for a lottery of sorts and all paying customers get them.
They were having some kind of game night before that, and there was a rugby match on the television, but I ignored all of that because I knew nothing about the game and nothing about rugby.
Lynn tried to explain rugby to me. She did not succeed.
But we had this ticket, and what apparently happens is once a week, they put $50 in a jar and they draw a number. That number then walks up to a large display case on the wall that has all the cards in a playing card deck hanging up. Each has number written on the back. If your number (the ticket we got) is called, you go up to the man and decide which card you want him to pull from the case and turn over. If you get a joker, you win the money in the jar. If the joker is not selected, the card is hung back up in the display case, with the face of the card facing outward (to show it had been chosen) and another $50 is put in the jar the following week and the prize grows until someone does win.
We did not have our number drawn. I’m glad, because I am not invested in this community and feel it should be someone from the community who wins. Lynn was having ideas about how she might spend the $400 the pot was up to that evening.
I was going to hand it over to the waitress and say give it to a local charity, but I am also blessed with the ability to pay my way through life and others need the boost.
The man, a local who is apparently a regular here and well known, did not pick a joker and with that, the evening of games died down and the crowd dispersed.
So did we. Lynn walked up the hill to her hotel, and I returned to mine to get ready for the next adventure. My bus ride to Kaikoura.