Christmas in Marlborough

See Christchurch’s inner city rebuild before driving north to lunch at Waipara Estate winery. We drive over the Hunderlee Hills to Kaikoura where we visit Fyffe House, Kaikoura’s oldest house dating back to the whaling days of the 1840s and the seal colony.

At the new museum the “New Normal, the Kaikoura Earthquake Exhibition” looks at the quake’s impact on the community. No visit to Kaikoura is complete without the stunning views and wildlife of the Peninsula lookout. We stay at the White Morph Inn.

We drive the perimeter of Yealands vineyard to enjoy the views. In Blenheim we lunch and wine taste at Brancott Estate vineyard and visit the outstanding Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre which features a large collection of First and Second World War flying memorabilia.

This evening we take a relaxed, private dinner cruise to explore the bays and stunning beauty of Queen Charlotte Sound. We return to Picton to stay two nights at the Picton Yacht Club Hotel.

We breakfast at our hotel and start our Christmas celebrations early at our private lunch with Bill and Margaret McHugh in their Picton lodge.

Later we drive the Grove Track, a longtime  favourite spot for holidaymakers. Baches are dotted through the bush and there are lots of small bays. We call into Havelock  and Anakiwa where Outbound Bound is located before returning to Picton and dining in at the hotel this evening.

This morning we find out the history of the old sailing ship “Edwin Fox” at the exhibit on the Picton waterfront - from troop carrier to immigrant ship, even convict transporter. 

Then we take the launch to Lochmara Lodge Wildlife Recovery and Arts Centre  in a beautiful setting on the sound’s edge. Kakariki parakeets fly in for feeding and blue cod swim off the jetty. In the mid afternoon we drive to St Arnaud close to Lake Rotoiti to stay this evening in the Nelson Lakes National Park. 

We drive through the stunning scenery of the lower Buller Gorge and on to visit the seal colony at Cape Foulwind. At Charleston we stop for lunch and take a short ride on the rainforest train into the stunning landscape of the Nile River Valley in the Paparoa National Park.

It's just a short walk out to see the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks and the coastals views are fantastic. We stay nearby at the Punakaiki Resort Hotel on the edge of the Tasman Sea and dine in this evening.

Leaving the coast we stop at secluded Lake Brunner before driving up the Otira Viaduct stopping to photograph the cheeky keas at the lookout.

From Arthur’s Pass we continue through magnificent alpine scenery to the Canterbury Plains and Christchurch airport.