Marvelous Marlborough Sounds

Here I am at Ngaio Bay, a peaceful paradise. It is a guesthouse settled down in the nook of a valley nestled amongst roses and ferns. I've been here for the past fortnight enjoying my little wwoofa accomodation which is a little hut right on the beach. The sound of the sea sends me into deep and happy sleep.

Day times have been spent digging in the garden, where a cheeky little weka has helped me pick out weeds. Jude then uses heaps of the salads, herbs, veges and citrus fruits in her daily delicious delights that she serves up at the evening meal which we share with the guests...

Here's some of the vege garden with the house - which Jude and Roger designed and built (with a little help) about 15 years ago -

And here's the compost toilet snook away behind a giant fijoa in the garden -

I also had a great time fishing - the day we went out Jude and me caught 15blue cod (I also caught 3 blue cod that were a bit wee and so got set back to the sea, one parrot fish, one spotty, and I nearly caught a baracuda (incredibly fast big shiny thing) that had off with half of one of my cods). The fish was served up for dinner that night, and it was the meltiest in your mouth fish I've ever tasted!

One blue cod harvested from the "water garden" -

When I am not digging, or helping with the running of the guesthouse I've been able to have some great times sinking into the rythm of the tides, swimming, kayaking and watching some sublime sunsets and moonrises.

Just one of many marvelous skies of gold looking back towards the Kahurangi and Golden Bay -

Experiments with the various buttons and bits on my camera lead me to discovering the self timer -

And exciting pictures with sssllllloooowwww shutter speed -

The wildlife here is really brilliant - because there are so few people that live here the wildlife really thrives. I've spent hours upon hours wathcing ganets plummet from 20m into the ocean and come up swallowing down a beakful of fish, and, on flat calm days, listening to the sound of little herrings hopping out of the water away from the grasp of bigger shadows beneath. Here is my first siting of a bright bright turquiose kiwi kingfisher, which seemed much less timid than the UK kingfisher -

And here's shebaa my guide for the day when I walked round to French Pass -

French Pass itself is a really amazing place - it's (wait for it, another NZ biggest/fastest/steepest claim) one of the narrowest passages of sea in the world, separating D'Urville Island from the mainland. The water here roars through and can reach up to 8 knots, the surface is covered in whirlpools and white water. Not a clever place to kayak, but fun to watch the sheerwaters try to swoop down and fly through against the rushing wind -

I've had a truly magical time here in Marlborough. Fantastic.