Postman Pat's Busy Day

We'd been told the best way to see Marlborough Sound was to take the post boat on one of its rounds, serving the remoter parts of the sound.

On Fridays, they deliver the post to a grand total of eight families, which is a full day's work, due to the distances involved.

So we boarded the boat at Havelock at 9.30 and off we went.

At quarter to 12, we made our first delivery to a farming family, whose children, unsurprisingly, are home schooled. There followed six more calls, farmers, fishermen, a couple of holiday centres for people who really want to get away from it all, and best of all an 89 year old guy with a yacht, who lives on his own , now that his wife is in a care home. He sails his yacht into Havelock once a week to visit her.

Leaving the yachtsman's place

One of our drops called the postman ahead of time, and told him he would wait a week for his post, since the seas near his jetty were a bit rough, so we gave him a miss.

On the way, we also saw lots of bird life, including the amazing Australasian tern, which crash dives into the water at speeds approaching 90mph in search of food.

We also saw the mussel fishermen, and a 'mobile salmon farm'. Havelock apparently processes around 80% of the green-lipped mussels in the world, 60,000 tonnes last year!

Harvesting mussels

The mussel beds

Jim the skipper(a Scot), kept us informed and entertained all day with tales of the way of life in one of the remotest areas we have seen so far.