Sheep Farm and Picton

After a few days on the ship, we finally arrived at a port in New Zealand where we could get off, Christchurch. Our destination for the day was a sheep farm. We figured we should start with a traditional New Zealand experience, and you can't get more traditional than sheep, dogs, and afternoon tea. Elena was very much in her animal element.

We got to watch the sheep dog bring the sheep down the hill.

We also got to see a sheep shearing.

We felt a little bad for the sheep in the moment.

But it seemed to be okay, and the kids got to pet the baby lamb.

Afterwards, we got to sit in the garden and have tea and cookies.

We also got to drive around Christchurch, which is quite a nice town. We were happy to get on the ship again though, with our water views.

The next day, we sailed into Charlotte Sound and stopped off at the town of Picton. It's on the northern end of the south island. It's also where the Marlborough wine region is and the sound is known for its large, green "shelled" mussels. Basically, it was my belated Christmas present.

We had a cruise around the sound scheduled for the afternoon, but we went into town a bit earlier to look around and grab some lunch. There was a beautiful public park right on the water with a big playground. When we got there, it wasn't very crowded, so the girls had a blast taking over the playground ship.

We let the girls play for about an hour, and then we found a restaurant with outdoor seating for some lunch.

Elena had spotted an ice cream shop, so we got her two scoops. They were potentially the two most enormous scoops of ice cream I've ever seen.

We went back to the park to let Elena finish her enormous ice cream.

Finally, it was time for our boat cruise. The girls went and found us a great seat up at the top of the boat.

We had a 360 degree view.

We sailed around for a while, and then dropped anchor in one little harbor. The captain grilled up some salmon, and they had mussels ready to go.

New Zealand green shelled mussels are enormous. They are also delicious, especially when paired with local Sauvignon Blanc.

Elena was my mussels buddy (no wine for her!). Her favorite part though, was that we were supposed to throw the shells over the side when we were done with them, so she was throwing our shells and any other passengers who offered them to her, over the side of the boat with great glee.

There was also salmon, which was very good and more up Jeff and Vivian's alley.

After our feasting, we sailed around some more and eventually returned to port in Picton.

We walked back across the lovely park and hopped on the shuttle back to the ship. It was definitely one of our favorite stops in New Zealand, and we would love to go back and spend more time there.