Water Taxis, Planes and Automobiles…..

At 2pm I was having a leisurely time enjoying the sunshine and scenery and by 3.30pm Brownie turned up in his water taxi to whisk me back to Havelock!  He nudged up against Salanjo and I hopped on, waved goodbye and then he was off like a rocket, warning me that it would start to get rough (not music to my ears I can tell you!).  Not a lot of comfort down below either, just me and two bench seats and very dirty windows which made it impossible to see outside, and more importantly, nothing to hold on to, except the corner of a sink which I clung to for the best part of an hour until we came into Havelock Marina!

I asked Brownie where I could find a taxi and was panicking when he said “not here, only 500 people live here, you have to call one to come out from Blenheim” which was about 30 minutes’ drive away!  It was already 4.45pm and I had a flight at 6.15pm which was also the last flight out of Blenheim for the day, just adding another frisson of excitement to the journey!  After a bit of pleading, Marlborough taxis stepped up and found a driver who put his foot down and picked me up at the dock and then hurtled back into Blenheim by 5.50pm, just in time for me to get into the queue to board my flight to Wellington!  Yep, no direct flight for me today, that would have been far too easy, wouldn’t it!  By the time I got to Wellington and into the terminal, I was just in time to hear the call for the last remaining passengers on my flight to Auckland, so once again, I dashed through the terminal and was the last one through security and just made it!   Finally, an Uber back home and six hours later I was back in Herne Bay.  What a day!  I could certainly have given Steve Martin from “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” a run for his money!

So once again I have had to pause a few days on the blog, but will be back soon…..