We certainly understand that you most likely follow us to hear about our sailing adventures and while our land travels provide you with another aspect of our lives you probably wish we’d get back to the sailing stuff. Well, we’re getting there and much more quickly than you’d expect.
With that in mind we are going to do just a couple more posts on our land tour of the South Island here in New Zealand. In fact, we are just going to give you the highlights of each place we stopped. Then we’re back to the sailing stuff because in just two weeks we will be getting back to the business of sailing and will be headed north into the islands again.
Once we start sailing again we will be doing short daily posts to keep you as up to date as possible. It’s something we’ve wanted to do for a while now and the time has come so stick with us. We will be checking out of New Zealand at the end of the month and heading to sea!
But don’t miss the next few posts because we’ve visited some really cool places in New Zealand that you should see and after we returned Dan had to do some work on Dazzler. He’s got a couple of great articles coming about the work he did and there’s even a quick video on the best way to re-bed stanchion plates so stay tuned!
Morning came very early today! We were all up and moving at 0500 which is WAY too early for most of us. Dan is the early bird in this flock. But we had to do it in order to get to the ferry dock in time. We have a pretty tight schedule today so there’s no time to dilly dally.
We have coffee and tea and everyone slowly starts to get going. Of course we’ve got to load the car with all of our food and luggage so Dan takes the lead and starts hauling out the goods. After a quick walk through to be sure everything is left the way it’s supposed to be and to be sure we haven’t left anything behind, we are off to the races again.
The sun is barely peeking over the horizon as we head down the mountain toward town. We make a few wrong turns and for the first time since we’ve been on this trip Dan actually starts to go down the wrong side of the road. Ooops! Fortunately there were very few people out so he was able to correct his mistake without wrecking the car or terrifying any of the locals.
We arrive at the ferry dock where they line us up with the rest that are crossing today. We’ve got about an hour and a half to kill before boarding so we do the “American” thing. Since it’s pretty cool outside we walk across the street to McDonalds for a cup of coffee. The funny thing is that at McDonalds in this country they don’t just make drip coffee. They actually have baristas making coffee at a special counter. It’s pretty gourmet for this type of joint.
Our very limited view of downtown Wellington makes us wish we were going to be spending more time here. There’s lots of things to see here but time just won’t allow it. Before long we must head back to the car and get ready for boarding. Having never been on a car ferry before we’re not quite sure what to expect. Of course, Jilly had her trusty video going so rather than tell you about the ferry ride, we’ll show you. Click on the link at the bottom of this article to view the video. It’s pretty short but will show you the stunning beauty that is Marlborough Sound.
The ferry terminal in Wellington.Jilly spread some of her daddy’s ashes here on the way out of the harbor.
The ferry ride and Marlborough sound certainly lived up to all the hype. While taking our car on the ferry wasn’t cheap, around $168 NZD/person roundtrip, it was definitely worth every penny. And, although the day was rather chilly and the beginning of the trip was windy with some pretty rough seas we enjoyed every second of it. From Picton we kept on trucking and about six hours later we arrived at Hokitika.
Check back to find out more about this artsy, seaside town.
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