The Marlborough Sounds

Hello everyone,

Mom and I had a great day in the Marlborough Sounds today. This is a coastal area here in the northern part of the South Island, similar to the fjord landscape in Norway.

There are sounds and fjords here. If I understood the difference correctly, sounds are drowned river valleys, either due to the sinking of the earth's crust or due to the rise in sea level. Fjords are formed by valley glaciers, which means after an ice age.

Anyway, we drove off this morning and drove along Queen Charlotte Drive, where we had great views of the sounds. Then we went onto one of the sounds. Behind every curve, a new spectacular view awaited us. After about 3 hours of driving, we got out to go for a short hike. It was about 5 km through a hilly landscape, through the forest, and in between we could always see the water and the other sounds. It's simply fascinating how many different colors water can have. Everything from ice blue to dark green. The highlight, unfortunately without a photo, was spotting a kiwi bird (a native bird that is also New Zealand's emblem).

After this impressive day, we just strolled through the harbor area and ended up in an Irish pub where we tried some new beer with joy, it was delicious as always, and observed people.

Wishing you all a great day.

See you soon,

Jessi