Wellington to Kaikoura

Sunday, February 23

So we forgot to post this fun picture from the washrooms at Hobbiton:

Well, we've cancelled 2 of our upcoming excursions and ordered a new phone for Frankie.  The exact same phone she had before.  Hopefully it will be waiting for her when we get home after the trip.

Today was the day we went from the North Island to the South Island.  There is no road that connects them. 

imagecredit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/Map_of_New_Zealand_%28blank%29.svg/389px-Map_of_New_Zealand_%28blank%29.svg.png

The only way to get from one island to the other island is either a short domestic flight, or the Interislander Ferry Service.  This is the ferry route:

imagecredit: https://freedomdestinations.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Interislander-Ferry-Map.png

We dropped off our rental car right at the boat terminal at 7:15 am in preparation for our ferry ride.  Apparently the ferry does take vehicles, but it's cheaper to drop off one rental and get another one at the other end.  At least that's what our travel agent told us to do.

It was a bit like an airport or a cruise ship.  We had to check in our luggage with the boat.  It was actually mandatory.  While we were in the waiting area, we ran across the guy from Whitby that we had met at the Auckland rental car pickup (he also was not allowed to pick his car up one hour early).  

The Interislander Service has 3 boats that they use as ferries.  We were on the Kaitaki.  It really was a bit like a cruise ship.  There were 10 levels, several lounges, a movie area, and several cafes.  There were about 800 passengers, capacity is 1000.  We were on the ferry from 8:45 am to 12:15 pm.  We found a comfy seat at the back of the ship with a window.  

We had fries for lunch and had to pay 40 cents for a small packet of ketchup.  The ketchup tasted very different and was labelled "tomato sauce".  We googled why it tasted odd, and apparently sometimes apples are used as an ingredient.

We sat near a lady who works as a funeral director in a town in the far south of NZ.  It was her first time on the ferry because she usually flies over.  But she was on the north island picking up a new hearse, which she drove on board.  She told us some interesting stories.  You can't actually buy a hearse ready-made.  They are actually station wagons with modifications.  She owns the only 1947 Chrysler Windsor hearse in the world:

She told us that in ancient Maori tradition, when someone died the loved ones would leave the body to nature (ie birds) for one year, and after a year they would bury the bones that remained.  The tradition has developed so that now a loved one is buried right away, but the headstone is placed one year later.  

There were some spectacular views as we sailed into Picton on the South Island:

Once we landed in Picton, we had to collect our luggage.  It was like an airport carousel but it took twice as long because there were 800 passengers.  Most of the luggage was gigantic backpacks. Then we had to pick up the new rental car right there at the dock.  By the time we got there, there were 10 people in line ahead of us and only one person working the counter.  I would not recommend Europcar to anyone.

This time we have a Toyota Yaris cross.  Very similar to our last rental.  We drove from Picton to Kaikoura, 2 hours along the coast.

Driving along the coast, there were lots of places to pull over to enjoy the view:

At one of the stops, this little dude refused to leave our car:

We got to our hotel right at the same time as a busload of tourists and rushed to get checked in before they did.  Our room has a view of the ocean.  We were racking our brains trying to figure out exactly which ocean it was LOL.  But we figured out it's the South Pacific Ocean.

It's another Sudima hotel which means they only have smelly soap.  And no door on the shower.  But hey, we got this!

Believe it or not, this is the first time on our trip that we've eaten dinner in the hotel restaurant.  It was a bit drizzly so a nice evening to actually chill in our hotel room for a change.  We've discovered that the weather in NZ is extremely changeable.  If it says there is a 10% chance of rain, Anton joked that it means it will rain for 10% of the day.  We'll see what tomorrow brings!

We watched an episode of Amazing Race Australia.  Frankie is getting a lot more reading done now that she doesn't have a phone!  Imagine!