A day spent around Picton, walking rather than cycling. On our way out of the campsite we met Kevin and Debs - last seen getting off the Christchurch to Greymouth Train with their bikes (they had cycled up to Arthur's Pass and then got the train down). Nice to swap accounts of our travels - they had been up around Motueka via Punakaiki (pancake rocks - where we spent New Year). They had fund the traffic around Nelson unfriendly - as had we back in early Jan. But they are hopeful of OK cycling conditions (if you time it right with the traffic flows) going south on highway 1 to Kaikoura - which they had previously found OK when heading north.We hung around in a secondhand shop for a while, until it became very clear that we weren't going to buy anything. Then, after a brief shop, we headed off on the Harbour View and Snout Point Track. It's a pleasant undulating walk with fine views out over the Marlborough Sounds. Every hour or so a ferry throbbed past heading in or out of Picton Harbour. The best view is the Queen Charlotte (wife of George III) View but the Snout Point view does feel more remote - a taste of what the multi-day tramp along the Queen Charlotte Walkway must be like. There was a memorial, pretty much like a gravestone, to two Japanese divers who died while diving off Snouts Point.Then we went back to Picton, hearing various shouts from the many kayaks and boats on the water. Kiwis certainly know how to enjoy themselves out on the water. A flotilla of small boats was having a race (off Snouts Point were a challenging Force 4-5 was blowing), another set were being taught luffing and tacking in sheltered waters near Picton.The walk to Snouts Point took about 4 hours or so, there and back.Then back to the tent for an evening of wine, veggie food and discussing bike routes in Oz and Europe jobs, tents, beer and other important matters.Corporate culture, we agreed, is fundamentally the same UK and OZ, being unable, of course, to see beyond very conventional management pap - so, e.g., every manager mistakes MS Windows as the appropriate choice for their web stuff (after all, it's what they see on their notebook), against cost, security, flexibility, reliability and honest to goodness not being evil. And we all noticed that staff are bought in rather than risk training their employees, who are deskilled as a matter of policy and culture. Oh, we solved the problems of the world and were only frustrated by the fact that no-one was listening....
A day spent around Picton, walking rather than cycling. On our way out of the campsite we met Kevin and Debs - last seen getting off the Christchurch to Greymouth Train with their bikes (they had cycled up to Arthur's Pass and then got the train down). Nice to swap accounts of our travels - they had been up around Motueka via Punakaiki (pancake rocks - where we spent New Year). They had fund the traffic around Nelson unfriendly - as had we back in early Jan. But they are hopeful of OK cycling conditions (if you time it right with the traffic flows) going south on highway 1 to Kaikoura - which they had previously found OK when heading north.We hung around in a secondhand shop for a while, until it became very clear that we weren't going to buy anything. Then, after a brief shop, we headed off on the Harbour View and Snout Point Track. It's a pleasant undulating walk with fine views out over the Marlborough Sounds. Every hour or so a ferry throbbed past heading in or out of Picton Harbour. The best view is the Queen Charlotte (wife of George III) View but the Snout Point view does feel more remote - a taste of what the multi-day tramp along the Queen Charlotte Walkway must be like. There was a memorial, pretty much like a gravestone, to two Japanese divers who died while diving off Snouts Point.Then we went back to Picton, hearing various shouts from the many kayaks and boats on the water. Kiwis certainly know how to enjoy themselves out on the water. A flotilla of small boats was having a race (off Snouts Point were a challenging Force 4-5 was blowing), another set were being taught luffing and tacking in sheltered waters near Picton.The walk to Snouts Point took about 4 hours or so, there and back.Then back to the tent for an evening of wine, veggie food and discussing bike routes in Oz and Europe jobs, tents, beer and other important matters.Corporate culture, we agreed, is fundamentally the same UK and OZ, being unable, of course, to see beyond very conventional management pap - so, e.g., every manager mistakes MS Windows as the appropriate choice for their web stuff (after all, it's what they see on their notebook), against cost, security, flexibility, reliability and honest to goodness not being evil. And we all noticed that staff are bought in rather than risk training their employees, who are deskilled as a matter of policy and culture. Oh, we solved the problems of the world and were only frustrated by the fact that no-one was listening....