Welly and the ferry to South Island

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October 11th 2008

Published: October 23rd 2008

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ross and polly

World Heritage Site

Ross:

The drive south to Welly (as it is affectionately known by the locals) along the Desert Road is fairly barren with Mt Ruapehu on you right hand side as you drive through the Tongariro National Park. We stopped off for a break at Taihepe to visit the Mokai Gravity Canyon, a site for bungy jumping, canyon swinging and zip-lining over a rather steep and deep gorge. Luckily for me the bungy wasn't running due to high water levels so we postponed all extremeness for later in the tour...

Polly:

We had an easy drive to Wellington, so easy we forgot that we didn't actually know where we were going as I'd forgotton to get my Uncle Jimmy's address! We pulled over to phone him, and he said that we'd gone too far. We turned around and headed back for about 10km where he met us in a carpark. Jim and his wife Oriole live on a hill in Papakowhai, overlooking Porirua.

After 10 days in the Queenie it was lovely to be in a big comfortable house. Oriole & Jim made us the most amazing dinner - we started with prawns in garlic butter,

The foot of Mt Ruapehu

It's next door neighbour, Mt Ngauruhoe stars as Mt Doom in Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately both were covered by clouds.

and we have never eaten so many prawns in one sitting, the bowl was big enough to wash your face in. They then made us Tarakihi (a tasty, moist, white local fish) with salad and potatoes. Totally spoiled!

The last time we had seen Jim was at my Granny's 80th, some 6 years ago, and the time before that was in Cyprus (possibly 15 years ago?). It was great to catch up and really nice to meet Oriole. On Friday night they took us out for a curry which was our first since leaving home. It was really good, especially the lamb madras. On Saturday morning O&J made us a Chinese-style prawn omelette (egg, prawns, beansprouts & spring onions - amazing!) with fried potatoes and kumara (like sweet potato) before we headed off to the ferry. I think we left a few pounds heavier but with very happy bellies. Cheers guys for a lovely weekend.

Ross:

Whilst, staying with Jimmy we had the opportunity to to see some of Wellington before jumping on the ferry to the South Island. Jim recommended a good coastal walk past Owhiro Bay to a seal colony on the southern-most

Bungy!

Unfortunately, due to high river levels the bungy wasn't running. Lucky me!

tip of the Wellington peninsula known as Red Rocks Reserve. The name comes from a small section of rocks on the shoreline that are predominantly red in colour caused by underground volcanic eruptions. So, wrapped up warm due to the strong winds, we had a good 3-hour trek along the coast. Much to our surprise (because it is a bit late in the season) there were actually seals still basking on the rocks - mostly unlucky male bulls fattening up for the next mating season but with the odd orphaned pup lying around as well.

That afternoon we pulled up in the city centre and had a quick look around the waterfront and civic centre areas of the city, whilst stopping off for a coffee next to the boathouse, before heading back to Jim's place.

The next morning we said our farewells and rolled up at the Bluebridge Ferry Port for our Cook Straight crossing to Picton. With calm seas, Pol's motion sickness behaved itself and after a steady four hours we sailed into the lee of Queen Charlotte Sound and our destination port of Picton, on the South Island. With not much going on in Picton other