Day 8: Marlborough Sounds

Sept 28th

Logan slept all through the night and didn't wake up until 7:30 - Yippeee!! :) Definitely started the day off right. I think he got a lot of excess energy out playing in the kid's area all night on the boat. Again, could we be onto something here? ;-)

Jon and I slept together on one of the twin beds which reminded us of old college days. Ahhhh, how sweet. Jon did end up moving to the other bed once Logan woke up in the morning since we couldn't quite squeeze two adults AND a baby on the single bed. ;-)

Our hotel was located in the heart of Picton. So, we walked to a local cafe for brunch. The food was so-so. The cafe didn't know how to cook an egg "medium easy" for Eric which disappointed him. Jon and Eric discovered (and then ordered) latte/cappuccino bowls which were so humongous (they were literally BOWLS of caffeine) that the two were very jittery the rest of the morning.

Just what we need - jittery nerds. And what do jittery nerds do with their jittery selves?

Well, once back at the hotel, the boys wasted 30 minutes of Jill, Logan and my lives, arguing over how to work around the hotel's Internet access so that we could have free access.

30 minutes later, and they didn't figure it out.

30 minutes wasted, that we'll never get back. I wonder if it felt like just 5 minutes to Eric and Jon tho...

We set off for Captain Cook's Monument as the starting point for our 6-hour hike on the Queen Charlotte Track, that we had planned to take that day. The drive was gorgeous for the first hour or so, curving around the nooks and crannies of the Marlborough Sounds. But, then it got MORE curvy and windy and everyone (primarily me!) started getting carsick, cranky and tired.

Where was the fucking Queen Charlotte Track??

We finally stopped at a resort in a small town called Portage (I'm not even sure I'd call this a town) and found out that you cannot DRIVE to Captain Cook's Monument, you can only get there via boat.

Seriously?? You're kidding!

No, I'm really not.

And by then, it was too late in the day to go (I forgot to mention but we had also lost an hour with the time change).

The drive was super scenic and the Marlborough Sounds were really pretty, but what a waste of a day! :( Once again, I was kicking myself for not planning or researching our activity any better. Gah.

So, we took our time on the drive back home since everyone was starting to get a bit carsick. Poor Logan was an unhappy camper. I actually got really bad room-spinning vertigo when we finally got back to the hotel which wasn't fun. I suppose all day in a car on windy roads will do that to a person.

Though we had been sitting in a car all day long, we were actually in fairly good spirits over dinner, at a fancy little restaurant on the wharf. When we got back to the hotel, the four of us crowded on Eric and Jill's bed in the living room watching TV (since Logan was already down in the kid's our room sleeping) before calling it a night.

Off to bed to get rid of the vertigo!!