New Zealand 11 (or .... Leaving the South Island)

Well, a little too much time has elapsed here, hasn't it?

12-April-2011

The time has come to leave the south island. Paul B got up early to take us to Picton where we would catch the ferry across the Cook Straight which separates the north and south islands. You can sort of see in this picture the dotted line that is the route the ferry takes from the south island (which is to the west), and the north island (which is to the east). (But that's just in this picture... they really are north and south which I'm sure you remember from the earlier post...)
It was really foggy in Picton, and for the first part of the ferry ride, so we didn't see nearly as much of the scenery leaving Picton as we would have liked, but it finally cleared up just before we entered the Strait. The ferry dropped us in Wellington about four hours later, and we quickly checked into our motel, and went for a walk.

And made it as far as a pub that was sitting right on the water. No more work... time to relax and have a beer in the middle of the day. I finally felt like I was REALLY on vacation. All the other stuff was cool, but I kept thinking about the buoy, and how we'd deploy it, and such. But now... not so much.
It was a great little place called the Bayside, or the Wharfside, or the Harborside, or something like that, and they had their own hats that they handed out to everyone who sat in the sun so that you wouldn't get burnt. It was very bright out, and I'm glad to have had mine. Warm sun and cold beer go very well together when you don't have to think about buoys......

After our beer, we went to Te Papa or the national museum. I can't remember which. No, wait Te Papa *IS* the national museum. And well, we didn't get any really good pictures there. You couldn't use flash, and it was just too ... inside to have good lighting. But it was free, and it was very cool. Natural history, art, industry, culture etc. Here's the website, but you'll just have to go see for yourself, because there really aren't a lot of pictures posted there.