Lagoon Road, Picton, Marlborough
SMALL BUS ONSHORE EXPERIENCE TRAIL OF MARLBOROUGH 12-18 SEATS
CUSTOM WINE TOURS OF MARLBOROUGH
The small town of Picton is where car and passenger ferries arrive and depart for Wellington in the North Island, most people pass through Picton after crossing Cook Strait on the Interisland ferry, but there are some beautiful places to visit if one takes the time. Even a short scenic drive or walk to a lookout point over Queen Charlotte Sound is rewarding.
The town itself has several historic attractions as well as good accommodation at all levels, and there is a Marina in adjacent Waikawa Bay. If the weather fails you there is a nice cinema.
From here you can explore the Marlborough Sounds, ideally on a boat - there are several water transport companies located at the Town Wharf. Picton gives access to the spectacular 67 km Queen Charlotte Track linking historic Ship Cove and Anakiwa. It is easy to make a short walk of part of the track, using a water taxi to drop you off or collect you.
Road or water can take you to various parts of the Sounds. Once you turn off main routes, it’s not long before you are travelling on a slow, winding, gravel road. But you are rewarded with magnificent views of the Sounds’ peninsulas and islands, created at the end of the last ice age when the sea level rose and flooded river valleys. The Department of Conservation manages over 50 reserves in the Marlborough Sounds, protecting the land for its ‘natural values, scenic beauty and historic interest’. Land and sea offer countless opportunities for recreation: you can walk, swim, sail, kayak, boat, fish, dive, camp or just relax in the sun.
On the road inland to Blenheim there is a small airport about 8 km from Picton.
The Wairau Valley, where the town of Blenheim has grown, was once a swampy plain amidst forested hills. The higher distant mountains were covered with dense beech forest. The Te Rapuwai and Waitaha peoples lived here some 600 years ago. They hunted the wildlife in wetlands and the forests, which were replaced by native shrubs and grasslands after they were destroyed by fires.
**European Settlement and the Wairau Purchase
**The Europeans, who arrived in the mid 19th Century, burned the shrubs and grasslands to provide grazing for sheep. They also drained the wetlands, cut and milled the flax and felled the remaining forests for timber. In 1847, under Governor Grey, Ngati Toa were paid £3,000 in exchange for a block of land extending to Kaiapoi in the south. Beaver Station on the banks of the Opawa River gave the settlement its original name of Beaver, but this was changed to Blenheim in 1859. For some years Blenheim and Picton competed to become the capital of the province of Marlborough, the victory eventually going to Blenheim.
**Cloudy Bay
**Known to Maori as Te Koko-o-kupe (Kupe’s Scoop), Cloudy Bay was given its present name by Captain Cook on the 7th February 1770, because of the cloudy water brought into the Bay by the Wairau River. Whaling In 1828 John Guard established a shore based whaling station at Kakapo Bay, Port Underwood. He had originally established a community at Tory Channel, but settled at Port Underwood because of better access to Cloudy Bay.
SMALL BUS ONSHORE EXPERIENCE TRAIL OF MARLBOROUGH 12-18 SEATS
CUSTOM WINE TOURS OF MARLBOROUGH
Image Credit: Koenraad Kuiper
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