Really must try to get the sleeping under control, for the last week 9PM bed seems to have become the norm, but wake up time hasn’t got correspondingly earlier. Must be all the fresh air! We hit the road about 9:00AM after breakfast and headed South towards Wellington and the InterIslander Ferry. The trip was mostly down hill (physically) and there were more populated areas than we saw yesterday. Also the sheep finally took over as the most populous beast on the island. Again it was mostly two lane roads with passing places, but the roads were not busy and 90-100k was an easy drive. We stopped after a couple of hours to take a walk along Otaki beach to get some fresh air and exercise. The water looked grey, cold and uninviting. We headed into Wellington (now renamed the Middle of Middle Earth until the end of October in celebration of the city being chosen to host the world premiere of The Hobbit this month). We are now crossing the Cook Straight and will be in Picton in about 3 hours.
InterIslander Ferry
We arrived in Picton about 25 minutes late. For some reason the ferry came into Wellington, turned around to reverse back to the boarding ramp and then went forward again and did a tour of the harbour. Must have been a good reason, but we never did find out what it was. We checked into the motel, and got a fantastic room overlooking the marina. Once settled in we headed out to the local pub “The Toot ‘n Whistle” for a pint and some supper. This is the last of the “travel to get there days” tomorrow the explorations should start, although the forecast 90mm of rain may dampen our enthusiasm.