Monday 23rd January 2023
Breakfast at the Tophouse historical inn is only served until 8.30am, so we were up relatively early so we could shower and be in the dining room comfortably before 8.30am. We don’t often eat breakfast but it was included in the room rate and according to reviews was meant to be good. We weren’t disappointed, the scrambled eggs and slightly smoky bacon were delicious!
Our rental car is a relocation deal, which means we basically got a free rental car to drive from Queenstown to Picton in 48hr. There was also a free tank of fuel thrown in, so we’ve been trying to calculate the exact amount of petrol needed to get us to our destination in Picton. Yesterday we put in 12 litres, which *should* just about be enough, but we decided to take todays drive very steadily to conserve fuel (and keep our fingers very firmly crossed!)
As we passed a petrol station in Blenheim, we debated whether to top up with a couple of litres, but decided against it – according to the fuel gauge on the dashboard, we had enough to do 47km with just over 20km of the journey remaining. A few minutes later, however, the fuel gauge suddenly dropped to zero! It was a little alarming, but fortunately we’d not gone far so decided to backtrack to the petrol station and top up with the minimum 2 litres. The fuel gauge still read zero after we’d topped up, but at least now we were 100% confident we could get to Picton without running out!
The road into Picton passes by several wineries. A lot of them don’t open until much later in the morning (or are closed completely on Mondays), but Forrest Wines happened to be open. We stopped by for a wine tasting (well I did a tasting, and Pete had an occasional sip as he was driving), which comprised 7 different wines for $12 (about £6). Unusually for a wine tasting, all the wines were brought out in one go. This meant you could go back and forth between them, but I felt there was also less detailed explanation given than at some other wineries we’ve visited. The wines were pleasant enough but none particularly stood out so we didn’t end up buying a bottle.
From the winery, it was only a short drive to the Sequoia Lodge Backpackers, where we were staying for the night. The rooms there are very basic and quite small, but it was very cheap for a good location so we felt it was good value. It was too early to check in, but we were able to drop our bags off. We then drove to the ferry terminal to drop off the hire car.
After dropping the car, we had a wander around Picton Harbour. We debated whether to go into the Edwin Fox museum, but we could see the ship from the outside and it didn’t look to be enough to justify the $15 per person entrance fee.
We walked around the harbour towards the town centre, and came across a small arts and crafts market just by the waterfront. We were a bit disappointed to find there were no food stalls within the market though (we’re very into street food!).
Instead, we grabbed a steak and blue cheese pie from Picton Village Bakery and sat on a bench outside to enjoy it. The filling had an excellent flavour, but I felt it could do with a bit more meat and the pastry wasn’t the crispest ever.
We then had a walk around the town centre, which was relatively small but very picturesque. By this time it had also started to spit with rain, so we headed back to our hostel to check in and then do some laundry.
This also gave us a bit of time to plan some more of our trip (we’ve only booked a couple of nights beyond Picton).
We ate dinner at the Waitohi Sports Bar, and ordered a sharing plate platter. The freshly baked bread with herbs and garlic butter was amazing, but most of the rest was typical fried food (the fish bites were very good, but the chicken, calamari, and prawns were all quite average).
After dinner we headed back to the hostel and watched an episode of Stranger Things on Netflix before bed.
Emma and Pete’s Asian Adventure 