Sunday 12th February 2012
Today we ventured to Lochmara Lodge. A walk to the waterfront at Picton, we got in a water taxi and a 15minute boat ride to Lochmara. It was very scenic and the weather started off similar to the day before with a cloudy cover but it soon gave way to some glorious sunshine and heat!
I didn't really know what to expect from Lochmara, my quick internet look into it the day before showed an arts centre and an opportunity to feed some native kakarikis. Anyone who knows me well would know how much I LOVE birds so I was very excited about this opportunity and had that down on the list straight away.
As soon as we arrived at the Lodge, the first thing I saw was this gorgeous green bird. It was very fast at imitating words and I was mesmerised!! We checked in and Jonna booked herself a massage for later that day. I enquired about the birds' name and breed and found out his name was Banjo and he was an Alexandrine (not NZ native)!! I once had a cockatiel by that name and it made me very happy to hear that name again. Yes, I am totally bird crazy.
It was reaching lunch time so Jonna and I decided to share a lunch as we were starving and couldn't decide. I guess we thought the portions might be small but we were totally proved wrong and kind of looked really greedy with the amount of food on our table. It was very yummy though!!
After a bit of vino and a massive lunch we started looking into the walk around some of the tracks they have around the place. Very beautiful, some in open spaces, some enclosed. The minute you get into one enlcosed area you start hearing all the crickets and insects very intensely. I don't think I have been anywhere that loud before.
You can hear how noisy it was here...
We walked around and saw some gorgeous views and some animals and quirky little signs and huts. One of the funny moments was when we neared the sort of farm area and we knew we were cos of the really nasty smell coming from the pigs area!!
We went to feed the birds and bumped into the lovely elderly couple we met at the water taxi. I like that people are friendly enough to just start talking and making conversation. Sometimes it's pretty cool hearing their back stories as well as learning of tips for travel or places to see!
Feeding the birds was fun but they were not as keen as I had hoped. Some were still a little shy to come on over and they needed a fair bit of coaxing. I wanted something like how Trafalgar Square used to be. Birds birds birds everywhere!!
If I remember right, Jonna shortly departed for her massage and I went on to walk around some more.
More pieces of art, quirky statues, llamas, sheep, bee hives and at the top some funky blue statues. A German girl I met at this point said that they were ladies because of the tattoos on their chins. I think I need to read up some more about the culture here!!
Lochmara was lovely and I had a wonderful day here. I absolutely loved walking along the tracks and wish I had more time to explore. I'm sure I didn't see everything this place had to offer. It was definitely family oriented and I would loved to have found that hammock area earlier! Another thing I would like to have done also was try out the kayaks. We didn't pack any swimsuits and there was so much to do on the land that there was really no time for it anyway. The sun was beating down pretty hard by the afternoon so I was caking on the suncream and luckily this time it was all good!
Back to Picton...
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