South Island!

We've finally reached the South Island! After 7th months up North, we are ready to explore new sights!

Our weather in Wellington the day of the crossing was great--sunny and dry. No rain at all. We took the Bluebridge Ferry for the 3-hour crossing across the Cook Straight. They had quite a nice passenger area with comfy seats, tables, a TV room, and a cafe area. I took along the computer and some playing cards to amuse ourselves for the ride. Despite the calm weather, we still went over some pretty big swells while exiting Wellington Harbor. Luckily I had taken my motion sickness medication before the trip!

It was a beautiful crossing, though. Right as you exited the harbor you could see a range of mountains, with one big snow-capped one in the center on the coast of the South Island. The two islands are only about 12 miles apart--which isn't that far--so on nice days it's very easy to see across the straight to the other one.

As we entered into the Marlborough sounds, the sights got even better. We saw some dolphins off to the side of the boat and saw one or two little penguins before they dove under! The sounds were really beautiful, slowly parting and revealing new hills as you moved through them. 

We arrived in Picton just around 4:00 as the sun was starting to get low in the sky. Once the sun went down we could certainly start to feel the winter chill in the air! Luckily, the hostels in the South Island so far have been very nice and very well-equipped for the winter weather. The backpackers we stayed in our first night, Sequoia Lodge, had a roaring log fire in the main room, heaters in every room, and at 8:00 every night they served free molten chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream! It was delicious. They call it chocolate "pudding" as "pudding" has a very different connotation in British vernacular than it does in American. It was a definite highlight of the stay!

There was also a funny exchange that occurred while I was eating said pudding in the main room. There were a good number of Asians staying in the hostel (as there are a good number of them in NZ) and one girl came in and starting talking in Mandarin to this other kid, also Asian-looking, sitting across from me. Very soon after she starts talking he says to he "I'm sorry, I don't speak Mandarin. I'm from Ireland." Way to assume, girl, way to assume. It was funny. She didn't talk to him after that.

Anywho, the next day it was up early and off to the Queen Charlotte Track that goes up the sounds. It's 71 kilometers long, and usually takes 3-5 days to complete, but they have water taxis for people that just want to make a day trip out of it. Or they can transport your packs for you if you want to do the whole thing without the burden of a heavy pack.

It was a nice walk--the only major uphill part was at the beginning. The whole track was supposed to take about 5 hours, but John and I did it in 4 as we didn't take too many breaks, nor did we do any side tracks (as we wanted to make sure we caught our 4:00 water taxi back).

  

  

 

 These are little birds called Weka. They were all over the track and didn't seem to mind people. The resemble Kiwis, but have shorter beaks and wings.

We ended our part of the track at a really nice resort in the Endeavor Inlet. They had a long dock at the end of their property--so we just hung out there and on the beach for about an hour while we waited for the taxi. When the sun went behind the clouds, it got quite chilly! You could definitely feel that you were further south. Luckily, the water taxi man came right on time, as he was also doing the mail run simultaneously. Thus, we stopped at several places along the way back to Picton, dropping off mail and picking up people, so it took a while longer to get back than it did to get to the start. It was a pretty sunset, though.

We made it back to the car just as it was getting dark and started the two-hour journey to Nelson!