Our second night's camping was at a lovely site next to a municipal park in Upper Hutt, a short distance to the Interislander ferry where we were due early the next morning. We enjoyed walking round the park in the evening and discovered that our tent was next to the Wellington Fault. There are periodical pieces in the paper warning that Wellington is well overdue for a major earthquake. I slept slightly uneasily that night.
There are some pictures of activities in Blenheim. We spent New Year's Eve there on a pleasant enough camp-site that had a swimming pool and a lovely clear stream. We liked Blenheim with its surrounding vineyards and horticultural enetrprises. The town has single sex schools only which is interesting. The New Zealand Falcon was as close as we got to the species in the museum. I did see a few possible wild ones but did not get the views necessary for positive identification.
The train was running in Blenheim even on New Years Day so we had a pleasant trundle through the water meadows into town and back. There was lots of wild fennel growing.
