Picton; Movie Star Jo and her poor American cousins; Hippopotamus
Picton is a small town, with yachts in its basin, hotels crowding its shoreline, a park with flower beds adjacent to the paved walks right on the shore in the middle of the town shoreline. I was up at 7, just before sunrise, and the clouds had creeped into the upper portions of the town, but were soon to burn off. We actually opened up the main street by helping a cafe carry its tables and chairs outside where we sat and had breakfast. By the time we were finished, had returned to our hotel to check out and came back around 10, all the stores were open so we did some more shopping. Sugar has to make up for the time lost when we spent 9 days flying. We dropped off the rental car at noon, got our boarding passes, dropped off our luggage, and after a short wait in the waiting area, boarded the ferry for Wellington. Just as we were getting ready to depart, a plane swooped down over the town and landed on the water beside us - I got four pictures of it coming down. It’s another beautiful day, and the departure through this part of Marlborough Sound is unique and beautiful, being a passage between high hills on each side and continuing for 30-40 miles.
As we were baking in the full sun and gale force winds on the top deck of the Interislander Ferry proceeding from Picton on the South Island to Wellington on the North Island, Sugar with her down coat on and me with my Patagonia turtleneck sweater zipped up to the neck and baggy dungarees, this lady wearing a flowered print dress, dark unbuttoned Cardigan sweater with sleeves pulled up halfway up her forearm, necklace, dangling earrings, Mary Jane flat shoes, big dark glasses, with naturally dark curly hair, strolled by with her head erect and headed for the stern. Sugar turned to me who was half-asleep, “Wasn’t that Jo?” I looked up and saw this lady walking away from me. When she reached the stern, and turned around, I waved. She didn’t react, perhaps wondering why this old man with his hair standing straight up and his face beet red from two hours baking in the sun was waving at her. She started back and Sugar and I walked toward her - then she recognized us, or probably Sugar who is hard to miss with her cast in a white sling. Instead of running away, she came up and gave us both a hug. She explained that they had started their vacation yesterday, driving from Geordie Hill to Blenheim after leaving at 4 AM, and that Matt was down in the First Class lounge - she had stepped out just to get a breath of fresh air. She led us down to Level 7 so we could see Matt too - while Matt came out and was talking with us, Jo was talking to the staff and pleading for them to let us in the lounge too, all to no avail, especially after looking at us. Jo had good news about Heather - she had come in third in the Wanaka horsejumping competition, and had been complimented by an older woman who won the all-around medal for the show. We had a short talk and then we went back to being hoi polloi, and they went back to being a movie star and her agent. Actually Matt looked a lot less stressed than he had looked when he was lying on his back all day examining each kicking foot of 4500 upset sheep.
You can tell Sugar was helping me with the description of Jo. So now we add Movie Star Jo to our collection of Master Chef Jo, Pilot Jo, Nurse Jo, and Farmer Jo.
We entered Wellington Harbor, a large harbor surrounded by hills on its western side where Wellington is located. The downtown is full of modern high rise buildings, flanked on each side by homes climbing up the hillsides, one on top of the other. Kumar (some things remain the same) of Super Shuttle grabbed our bags and drove us to the Museum Hotel, which has a Hippopotamus on the roof of the entry and two classic motorcycles in the Lobby. I swear to God I did not know this - Sugar doesn’t believe me. This small hotel, across the street from the waterfront, reminds me of the funky Hudson Hotel in NYC, but the rooms are much bigger here in this hotel, although small by other standards. Contrasted with the motorcycles is a boxed glass display of a pistol, a bullet heading away from the pistol and suspended in midair, and then a skull. Then, another contrasting exhibit is a painting of a nude lifesize woman, from the backside, on the wall. A little something for everybody apparently.
It’s been another good day for us, and not just because of the weather and the high 70’s temps. Tomorrow we’ll check out Wellington, where South Islanders go when they want to go on vacation.
Love to all, Nat, Dad, Matt, DB
PS The pictures are of lawn bowling, Marlborough Sound from Queen Charlotte Drive, Sugar in Picton, and the seaplane descending over Picton for landing.
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