Goodbye South Island

On the ferry to Wellington. Booked Kaitaki Plus class so we got plush sofas, hot and cold lunch options, Internet and free drinks - nice one! Who says we can't travel in style :-)

Weather picking up as sun is shining if a little windy. Looking forward to North Island now and hopefully no more rain and twisty roads!

Edwin Fox

A little time to kill before checking in for the ferry to North Island. Popped in to town for a wander around and a coffee. The Edwin Fox is supposed to be the 9th oldest ship in the world and I must say I could believe it as all that was left was a pile of rotten wood. Brian read that it was the 8th oldest ship so I guess they must have build an older one! ;-)

Glow worms

Went into town before dinner. Took a very dark track along the rail road into town (very very dark on the return!). Was about midnight by the time we finished dinner. Decided to creep up to the end of the camp site where there was a spooky track to see glow worms. Crept up with the torch shushing each other and found like a little grotto full of tiny neon blue lights. Never seen that before. Managed to get this photographic evidence to prove it wasn't the pints of Kilkenney in the Irish pub and the bottle of red with dinner making us see stars!

Arrived in Picton in one piece!

Ok so the journey to Picton was interesting. Took the Queen Charlotte's Drive i.e. the scenic route through possibly the mostest longest twistiest road imaginable! Stopped off at a lookout and got told off by a studded hickey local yocal as apparently we didn't see the sign saying no camper vans. I strongly suspect that really all the tourists were interfering with his dogging more than anything else!

Arrived at the camp site which was right under a freight train track. The trains went right over our van shaking it about every time! Scary!

Camp site was quite an experience too as it was full of tattooed hicks camped up for the season. What with the huge family next door, the ducks running under our van, the caged parrots and the trains quite a place to stay! More character than Butlins though!

The Centre of New Zealand!

From Nelson town we walked up through the Botanical Gardens to the top of a hill to a spot which apparently is the centre point of New Zealand. Woo - marks the half way point of our visit methinks :)

A stop for ice cream!

Drove north again from Westport and arrived in Nelson for lunch. Several hours drive again - must say getting a little annoying now as every morning we plug our destination into the sat nav and it invariably says 230km and predicts 2 1/2 hour journey but it takes 5 hours to get our tank along the twisty roads - humph! Still it is all very scenic so it's more of a touring holiday rather than a sights at the moment. I guess we underestimated the size of the place!

We were glad to arrive in Nelson as we'd driven through a lot of rain in the mountains. At one point we had complete white out atop a twisty pass which was exciting!

Westport

Quite a long drive to Westport so we were glad to get there. Stopped off to pick up food supplies and then checked in to the Seal Colony Motor Park by the beach. Bit like a Butlins with little beige huts and stuff. Cooked steak for dinner with some New Zealand wine and then an early night.