25th January 2008

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25th January 2008
Today we had an early start to catch the ferry to the South Island from Wellington. We had to be at the ferry terminal at 7:25am to board the Inter Island Kaitaki Ferry. The Cook Straight was very calm today although it can be a very rough stretch of water. In the South Island the ferry goes up the Tory channel into Queen Charlotte Sound to Picton. In all it is a journey of 92 kilometres or 50 nautical miles and takes about 3 hours. Although the shortest distance between the North Island and the South Island is only 19 kilometres much of the time is spent travelling up the channels and sounds of the South Island.
We eventually got off the upper deck of the ferry behind all the trucks and camper vans on the lower decks which meant Vernon had to work hard getting past them on the one road running out of Picton. The scenery in the South Island is magnificent and for the first hour we drove through wine growing country where the vineyards stretched for miles. The land looks very dry and poor but its very good for growing grapes. Vern and Annette were surprised to see so many new acres of vineyards since they were here last.
The road follows the coast and the beachs stretch for miles with no-one about. The water looks amazingly blue. After Vern's valiant efforts to pass so many campers and trucks I did not ask for too many photo stops but stored the pictures in my head.
The weather has turned quite overcast and the hills have disappeared in clouds but its still warm and the forecast is not to bad for the trip to watch wales tomorrow.
We have chosen the resturant for tonight (Annette's choice) and been down to the beach to meet some seals. While we were there Bob saw a man selling rides on Skegways (sort of electric bikes) for 10 dollars for 15 mins so we all agreed he could have a go for a laugh and as you can see from the picture he enjoyed it very much. It was a weird sensation. To go forward you leant forward and to go backwards you leant backwards. The difficult bit was finding the middle where you stopped but did not start going backwards again.
Bob is going to get going on today's pictures now. I think I may need a year to look at all the pictures when we finally get home!
We have also arrived at a motel with a wireless internet connection so we can at last load our blog in the comfort of our Motel (Comfort Motel).

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Comments

[Lucy]

Anything missing?
It looks like you have something missing on a skegway, they look mighty peculiar. The blog is addictive, its so exciting when you get an email saying there is a new posting! Happy South Island travelling.

[bim]

Skegways
What an amazing machine, Alan says a friend of his sells them. Hope Qld and beyond can come up to NZ standards as it sounds too good to be true. Let me know if you want me to organize 14th-19th Feb