Marlborough Sound

Vacation number 2 starts, although this time much more pleasant than the turn of events that resulted in our first 3 week vacation on the north island. We arranged to work straight through our scheduled 3 day weekends in Westport so that before the end of our 3 months, we had a solid block of 3 weeks to tour the south island before leaving for Australia. Pauline also had a vacation break, so we teamed up together to visit the Marlborough area again. We stayed at her friend's lovely home in Blenheim and took an ecotour of the sound.


We had a really perfect day on the boat.


We saw 2 types of dolphin, Bottle Nose and Dusky.


The tour takes you to Motuara Island bird sanctuary seen here. By the end of the walking tour, we had seen Little Blue penguins resting in the box burrows, native NZ wood pigeons, Bellbirds, and South Island robins. Rob even had a close encounter with a wood pigeon that decided to take a crap when he was walking under the bird's tree branch. Sadly though, we did not see the Saddleback, which has now become endangered due to introduced species like the possum, stoat, ferret and rat.


The boat tour included spottings of the Bottle Nose and Dusky dolphin, mutton birds, and shags.