The only activities of today were to wrench ourselves out of the perfection of the Marlborough Vineyard Hotel and onto the scenic train from Blenheim to Christchurch.  Wayne and I both feel that no one would really believe the trip through our words so we will let pictures tell the story.  The Kiwi Rail train had an “open air” car.  Literally, an open air car where we could open our senses beyond the singular visual sense looking through windows.  While outside, we could smell the salt air, see the coast line, hear the Pacific ocean, and feel the vibration of the locomotive as we traveled down the coast through pastoral sheep pastures, rocky Pacific coasts, seal colonies, and tunnels through mountains.  To start off, here is a video I posted to YouTube.  They compress the quality so I apologize for that but it gives you an idea of our experience.  The rest will be said with pictures.

The station at the start of our journey.

Of course we had a bottle of wine, cheese and dried fruits along the journey.

We were so close to the ocean at times it felt that the waves may crash into the train.

The road and the train tracks kept switching sides, sometimes on the left of our train and sometimes on the right.

The views could not have been more remarkable.  Yes, these photos were taken from a moving train.

H&A there were several campsites along the route, anyone care to camp here?

And, the sheep were ever present grazing on what seemed to us, precious lands and views.  I wonder if they know how lucky they are?

We ended the day by checking into our hotel at Christchurch.  Sadly, the devastation from the 2011 earthquake is still ever present with empty lots, boarded up windows, and large, tall buildings in the downtown still vacant.  More on that tomorrow.  Have to get some shut eye.