Fruit picking is one of my wonderful experiences while living in New Zealand. I used to have a chance to pick blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and that was so cool when I could pick the fruits on my own. And of course, that can't be perfect without cherries picking. Luckily, I had a chance to do this by going to Blenheim to pick cherries in the first season days in December.
At that moment, I was living in Motueka, South Island. Therefore, the nearest and popular for cherries picking is Blenheim. Actually, I didn't know that I could try the cherry PYO service in Blenheim until my uncle told me that. Because I just knew that Blenheim was famous for the wine industry. All around Blenheim are covered by vineyards.
By the way, Blenheim is the largest city in Marlborough, near the northern tip of New Zealand's South Island. The nearby Marlborough wine region is often referred to as the center of the New Zealand wine industry. Summers are warm and relatively dry, while winters are relatively cool and crisp. One of New Zealand's sunniest regions, it enjoys a semitropical climate.
Blenheim sits mostly flat on the Wairau Plain, with only the southernmost border rising up to the Wither Hills. It has relatively good protection from the weather fronts that frequently occur due to the mountains surrounding it on all sides except for the eastern side. Throughout the year, there is some high wind activity, most frequently from the west, when the wind funnels down the valley of the Wairau directly at the town. It is situated at the confluence of the Taylor and Paoa rivers. This area experiences a number of (usually small) earthquakes each year and is in a tectonically active zone. And my friend used to meet earthquakes while she came to Blenheim to work, luckily that no one got hurt.
I came to Blenheim on weekend, and the weather that day was not too good. But my friends and I both didn't want to miss that chance cause our uncle would take us there. I was so nervous that would be raining the whole day cause from Motueka to Nelson there was still raining. Luckily, the rain stopped soon and finally, I could be confident about a good day in Blenheim.
I went through this mussel restaurant so many times and always be impressed by its decoration.
And we arrived in Blenheim and it was all sunny so different from Motueka. I have to thank my uncle for taking us out cause we thought we would spend our weekend at home on a rainy day.
And that's cheap for buying cherries here, just around 11-15$ per kg. And this is my uncle who drove us here and took us to many places while I was in Motueka. After picking the cherries, we were heading to Picton to see Picton harbor and also the first point of the south island. I always admire the huge of those ferries.
This is the view in front of the harbor, you can see the ferry on the left of the photo. For those ferries, it takes four hours to get to the north island, I heard that you can see dolphins while on the ferry. For me, I was not lucky enough to see them while moving to the north island by ferry.
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