Our day really got going at 7:30am, we hit the road to Picton, 148 km away to catch the 10:30 Interislander Ferry. We had to be there 1 hour before sailing time.
It all started well until we got out of Nelson, the roads turned decidedly bendy. After comments from the girls in the back about being thrown around on the last day of travel I was mindful of trying to give them a smoother ride today. After an hour it was time to pull over to admire the view up the coast and give everyone a break from the windy roads. About 10km out of Picton I laughed out loud when I saw a sign warning of windy roads for the next 8km. I mean how could they get any more windy, we were going through about 2 curves every 100m as it was. Unfortunately the sign was right!!! They some how managed to get at least an extra near hairpin into the road every 100m, it got to the point that my shoulders were starting to feel the work!!
But we got there in good time, it took about 1hr 40 mins, filled the car with juice (91octane fuel is at least $2.20 per litre here) and eventually found where to drop the hire car off. We checked in to the ferry and were on board by 10am. Deb had organised us into the premium passenger lounge, very comfy seats, food, drinks and wifi. Everyone was very happy with her choice. The trip across Cook Straight can be very rough, it has a reputation for being one of the worst passages of water in the world, but our crossing was smooth as, thankfully.
Once in Wellington we picked up our hire car and drove to our Hotel, which turns out is right across the road from the Wellington Museum and waterfront, very central.
After checking in we dropped off our bags and went out to do a little exploring. There were 2 markets on in the waterfront area. On the way to the markets we stopped to watch some kids jumping off a public diving platform into the harbour, they were having loads of fun, and then we stopped to watch the end of a “circus” act that was performing/busking on the prominard, they were very entertaining with a modified trapese act. The farmers market was almost packed up by the time we got there, but the other smaller market (a mix of animal rights/organic food/green peace/buddhism) was still in full swing with musicians performing on a central stage. We sat and watched a couple of performers before heading on to explore some more. We called into the city Art Gallery, they had 6 exhibitions on, 4 of which were edgy audio visual displays and the other two were more contemporary. We are still trying to figure out where the “Fridge door” was in one of the displays, I figure it just hadn’t arrived yet! We all agreed that that was enough Culture for one day and we walked back to the hotel after picking up some supplies on the way.
After a short relax we were back out for dinner at “Two Souls Bistro”. The food was very nice and the place had a great feel to it, a great way to finish our day.
Tomorrow we have a lot of exploring to do, so much to see, so little time.
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We are, sounds as if the four of you have had a great time together, love and hugs from us both.