We have arrived at the South Island. I'm sitting by a burbling stream that flows beside our campsite here in Blenheim, located on the north-east coast of the South Island in the midst of the Marlborough wine country, watching the ducks shoot the rapids, tuck into the calm inlet in front of us and waddle ashore. So far, this is the loveliest campground we've stayed in, save Muriwai. It sits just near the charming downtown of Blenheim, so it's not devoid of traffic noise or night trains, but it has a large stretch of lawn, currently mostly unoccupied, and the non-powered campsites back up to this lovely stream.

And the ducks are friendly, although I suspect they have ulterior motives. They seem to know exactly what a bag of potato chips sounds like when it's being opened. You can be in your camper, doors closed, and open the bag ever-so-quietly, and before you know it a huge herd of waddling ducks is bustling across the lawn with their awkward pigeon-toed gait, making a B-line for the sound. They hang around hopefully, and if nothing is tossed their way they settle busily into nibbling on invisible morsels in the lawn, or sit in feathery little lumps, waiting patiently for the time when you've eaten the bag down to little crumbs and dump it out for them to snarfle up with grunts and little quacks of happiness.

We've had our own reasons to be happy lately, starting with a wonderful and wondrous day in the glow worm caves of Waitomo on the North Island. Let me say that if there's one thing New Zealand is good at, it's finding ways to separate you from your money. And they offer a dizzying array of ways to do it, and I do mean dizzying. I thought Rotorua was challenging, as far as sifting through the must-do's, the wanna-do's and they they-think-you-should-wanna-do's, and then trying to decide which company will provide the best value and service once you decide what you must-and-wanna-do. But it's not just limited to Rotorua, no, the plethora of activities spreads across the land, it seems. Every region has a daredevil option, or a one-of-a-kind-don't-miss. The glow worms, however, really are a don't miss, and while there are glow worms all over New Zealand, and you can see them for free here and there, the Waitomo caves have the most dense population of them.

After pouring over brochures and talking to people, Michael, Gloria, Allan and I finally settled on "Rap-Raft-n-Rock" as our guides through the caves, because they offered what sounded like the most fun at the best price. We knew we weren't interested in walking through the caves in a large group, or going down the dark river in a tourist-packed boat, and we also knew that the four of us love to try new things and to laugh a lot. This tour was limited to 6 persons, and we had a fantastic day. Starting with stripping out of our sensible clothing and donning ill-fitting wetsuits, white rubber rain boots, climbing gear and beat-up helmets with headlamps on the front, we clambered into a van and bumped off toward the caves looking like a group of people who can't seem to settle on a sport.

We hiked to the mouth of the cave, which in this case was a deep and narrow shaft, and rappelled down into the cavern where a cold stream moved at a rather casual pace through the bottom. The rappelling was fun, and the cave was spectacular, with the sun streaming through and the vines glowing in an unreal-green along the sides of the shaft. Then we plodded along in the stream in the dark, our headlamps lighting the way until our eyes grew more accustomed to the dark, dragging our oversized inner tubes along beside us. At length we came to the first cave of glow worms, and at that point all silly fun ceased and awe took over. With all headlamps off, and no light in the caves, the glow worms emit a beautiful tiny light, making the nearby roof of the cave look like a star-studded sky. With lights on, you can see little jewel-like strands of worm-goo, or actually they say it's more like a spider's silk with sticky blobs every quarter inch, hanging about 6-12 inches down from the ceiling. It's not something I can describe easily, save to say that it should be on everyone's bucket list. Truly beautiful. We continued our laughing and tumbling down river on inner tubes, or wading through the river in the dark, now completely used to the chilly temperature of the underground flow, and having a wonderful time. At one point we settled in a dark corner and our guide poured cups of warm mango-apple juice and passed chunks of chocolate from wet palm to wet palm, a welcome treat. It concluded with a climb back up the face of the rock that you rappelled down, into the bright sun and the surreal landscape that is New Zealand. After that, we just sort of stood around with dumb looks on our faces, trying to make intelligent, casual conversation when really we all wanted to just utter "Wow!" a million times.

We eliminated the need for conversation by deciding to drive as far as we could with what was left of the of the afternoon in order to bring us closer to Wellington, which brought us closer to the South Island, which we were all itchy to start exploring. So we drove until a little funky sort-of beach camp lured us in for the night. Michael and Gloria unwittingly set up their tent underneath a big streetlamp that illuminated that end of the campground, but it was just for the night and I told her to pretend it was the moon. I think it screwed with their melatonin production but they seemed pretty cheerful the next morning and even went for a long run on the beach.

We set out for Wellington a short distance south, and set up camp in a Top 10 Campground before exploring Welly a bit, even though rain had started falling. We wandered through the 1st of 4 floors at the Wellington museum, then took a beautiful, damp walk through Wellington's delightful Botanic Garden. Dinner was an Asian fusion kind of deal on a charming side street on 2-for-1 night, and then off to bed to rest up for the early ferry in the morning.

The ferry is big. People from Seattle and Vancouver and maybe some other places don't think so, but people like us, who think a ferry is something cute and small, are quite impressed by a ship that holds trucks and tankers and campers and cars, has a movie theater, a bar with live music (even at 8am) a full restaurant and a coffee bar that rivals any in the world, quiet rooms, noisy rooms, WI-fi, reclining seats, video games, observation decks ... oh my, and fantastic scenery. It was over much too soon, a short 3:10 ride across the Cook Straight and down into the beautiful Marlborough Sounds. We landed in Picton and headed for the wine country, with the intent of doing a self-guided wine tour the next day.

We've all joined the Top 10 Holiday Camp group for discounts and things, so that's how we found the ducks. They also have bicycles for rent for about half what some other places offer here in the wine country, that include nice saddle bags and locks, so the four of us suited up yesterday and pedaled off for a 24-km tour of the mostly white-wine region of Marlborough. We started at Cloudy Bay, which was a bit pricey for our camper standards, but we gave four thumbs-up to the bean bag chairs on the lawn. Then we crossed the street and had a marvelous lunch at Allan Scott winery, which also has a very good Pinot Gris. On our way west along a long stretch of road, toward one of the "boutique" wineries in the region, a loud air raid siren sounded, which for 3 of the 4 of us, was quite creepy. I scoured the skies for enemy planes but saw none;, turns out it was a community call for the volunteer firemen to beat feet to the station for a call out.

We only made 3 vineyards, despite the 6 or so that we'd planned on our wine map, because the third one we visited, Gibson Bridge Winery, was so fun and ever-so-generous that the four of us, none of us big drinkers, were sated and ready to attempt the long 12-km ride home. For me, it was agony: into a strong headwind, my hip flexors for some reason protesting every revolution, the seat a torturous enemy after the 12 previous km's, and the overall ergonomics seeming to be at odds with my ergonometry. Michael and Gloria, ever the stud couple, continued on without us, with plans to meet at Katmandu in town. Allan endured my painfully slow progress, with required stops every half km or so, until we finally eked out the last kilometer and rounded the corner into town. Not sure what that was all about, but at one point my empathetic mate commented that it was "unfortunate to have pain ruin a nice experience", and I said, between grunts and grimaces, "No, I'm having a wonderful time!! I just wish it would end!" And I meant every word. Go figure. You just don't want to miss anything here, so even when it hurts, it's amazing.

Tomorrow, off to join Gloria and Michael, who left today for Nelson Lakes. And then, a long-anticipated reunion of the four couples who shared a life-changing swim with whales in Tonga last August, and have come to know themselves as the "Sweet Pea Fan Club" -- Steve and Trish from s/v Curious, Gordon and Sherry from s/v Serenity, Gloria and Michael from s/v Paikea Mist, and us, formerly of s/v Fly Aweigh and currently at the helm of m/v Henny.

PS: The photo above was taken by one of the guides from Rap-Raft-n-Rock.