To the South!

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So on Tuesday we left Tongariro Nation Park on Trouble's bus (all the drivers have Stray names!) & had a loooong drive down to Wellington only stopping for food and loo stops. It was still mid afternoon by the time we checked into our hostel (Base Wellington - the worst we've stayed in so far!) but myself & Debby decided to join Cora, Sandra & Justin in visiting the botanical gardens. After a slight detour we found the cabelcar station which took us up the hill to the botanical gardens before walking back down through them to the city. We treated ourself to cheap pizza from Dominos for supper & had enough left over for lunch on Wednesday. After a couple of drinks in the BASEment Bar we headed to bed just as the music started to get good! Annoyingly a random guy came into our room in the middle of the night (he had a room key so presumably he was meant to be there but he had no bag or anything!) & he snored & talked in his sleep keeping us all awake for much of the night.

Wednesday morning we got our own back as we were up early to get the ferry across to South Island. The Ferry ride into Picton was beautiful as we wound our way through the straights between islands & outcrops. After that it was onto the bus and another long drive to Marahau on the edge of the Abel Tasman National Park and a lovely hostel called The Barn.

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Photos

Wellington
From the top of the Cabel car.