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TRIP TO THE GUARDS AT KAKAPO BAY

The marine Murphy was alive and well weather-wise for our recent trip to Port Underwood with a niggly fresh southerly breeze reaching up the port. We did the trip by car as it would have been very splashy in the dinghies, it would have been no fun to arrive at Kakapo Bay looking like drowned rats and spending the day in wet clothes.

We all enjoyed our lunch outside on the lawn overlooking the water and finished it off with a desert of Narelle’s baking.  After lunch we had a guided tour and a very interesting ‘history lesson’.

So, while it was a trifle cool everyone who attended enjoyed their time at the bay with John and Narelle Guard giving us a very interesting tour of the property. They explained the rich history of the area in early times and the graveyard that holds the remains of not only old whalers but some of the very first settlers to the Marlborough area.

And if that was not enough John explained that some of the fruit trees were planted in the later 1800’s and are still bearing good fruit to this day, plus a walk along the beach still showed fragments of whale-bone that have been there for more than a century.

After our tour we were invited into John and Narelle’s home to view some of the early photos of the port and its settlers, all I can say is those were truly the times of not only ‘wooden ships and iron men, but the ladies also had to be made of stern stuff to put up with the conditions that they found themselves having on a daily basis, so a very informative day was enjoyed by all and our thanks to the Guard’s for their hospitality