Visiting Picton at the north tip of the South Island in New Zealand/Carlos Pueblo

Visiting Picton at the north tip of the South Island in New Zealand/Carlod Pueblo

The ship Jewel took us sail at night from the lovely garden city of Akaroa to another beautiful port city of Picton on the north tip of the South Island. It is shown Marlborough(Picton) on the map of the cruise liner which means the Marlborough Sound, the same as those three fiourds
on the southeast side of the island, Milford, Doubtful, and Dusky sounds. I do not join the extra excursion to visit this site of the world heritage instead I do my regular hiking of the town center.

I pin the rosa petit gift flower on my baseball cap on the pier and another one on my jacket after getting off the shuttle bus. The small roses were provided by the friendly city folks to welcome the visitors. After a brief stay with a free WiFi to send out e-mail home with my new i-phone, I walked by a lovely playground with a golf putting track with a lovely rose garden in full blooming. A wood ship is on the ground for children while it is too new to be the famous teak sail site in the city. There is a six streets city center right above the playground with a unique gate entrance. The center is famous for shops of various kinds. I
walked by the Picton Foreshore Beach, Town Wharf, and across the Coathanger Bridge to the Picton Marina  by the Victoria Domain Walking Tracks. I had been attracted by the colorful home gardens not far away.

A two story duplex is at the corner of a street while its young owner is doing lawn mowing and two beige color British Bulldogs are barking at me from the balcony. I sweet talk to both honey and alert the lady owner to come out. Bull dogs have unique face and people won't forget. I kept on going toward a nice rose garden of a small inn on the Waikawa Road, the main road to the Waikawa Bay. The inn is on a higher ground of the road with an excellent arrangement of roses and a small garden pavilion. I walked on the opposite direction of the Bay toward the city center. A noticeable garden is on the hill in front of a luxury building later I learn that is a hotel. I went to visit a garden of a mansion on the second street above the road and chat with a couple doing the garden work. They were doing a house sitting job for three weeks for the owners. From the door step of the mansion, I can have an excellent view of the area, the bay, the rolling stone hills, and the lovely city center, etc. They told me the lady distributed the small roses to us was a big landlord of the town.

I kept on hiking toward several sections of the residential area by the road. I ran into fellow passengers from the ship, Lily and Olivia, Chinese Australian from Sydney in front of several unique houses with round balcony and nice garden. We took some photos together. Later, they came to visit their daughter and sister in Houston and I met them again. Before entering an intersection of the city center, I ran into Mariz and her co-workers on the ship and we took some pictures. Mariz needed to go back to the ship for duty and I ran into the other two in front of the city gate. It rained and stop for the rest of the afternoon and I decided to go back.