LIFE IN THE DEEP SOUTH

So just what do people actually do in Picton. They sit in spa pools and look at the view. Well I certainly did a lot of that - this was the view from the spa pool.

I'm using a bit of artistic license to call Picton the deep south. Like several places at the top of the South Island it's not really south of Wellington. It's more west.

But west brings up a lot of Auckland "westie" connotations, and could even be extended to aussies.

One thing's for sure - the weather is a hell of a lot better than Wellington. On the day I took this photo, Wellington was having heavy rain, and a freezing cold wind with gusts strong enough to blow punters off their feet.

The main thing people seem to do in Picton is boating. I'm not talking about fishing, or moving goods around - more luxuriating and floating around. I've never seen so many boats.

Swept up in the whole boat investment lifestyle I started looking for the right boat for me, and I soon found the boat of my dreams.

But that was out of my price range so I settled for something smaller and paddled it along.

In Picton you can buy a luxury house with a holiday homestay business and a large property including an orchard and bush walks for about the same price as a run down shack in Wellington

In Wellington a house like this one would be nearly as expensive as some of the boats in Picton.

Everyone in Picton drives a monster ute because they need one to tow their boat trailer.

The drawback with Picton is that there are very few amenities so everyone has to drive their monster utes over to Blenheim every time they want anything. And Blenheim still has that narrow bridge, too narrow for two trucks to pass each other. But they are in the process of replacing it.

What Picton has apart from boats, and views, is barely any wind. So it makes a very nice change from Wellington.