South Island Trip - Day 1 - Wanganui to Nelson

It's the end of a very long day, so forgive me if I don't make much sense.

We left the house at 5:30 this morning and drove down to Wellington to catch the Interislander ferry for our trip to South Island. The ferry was due to leave at half ten, but with Iain being a stickler for being early, we arrived at the docks at a quarter past eight. As luck would have it the earlier sailing, the 8:30, was just loading up its final cars, and the woman at the checkin booth managed to get us on that one instead. I'm very glad we didn't have to wait until the later sailing. The ferry terminal is just a car park with a few little booths for the employees. There's no main building and no facilities, like toilets or a cafe or anything, like there would be anywhere else in the world you might care to mention. I most definitely wouldn't have fancied waiting at the ferry terminal for two hours.

View from the ferry docked in Wellington

The crossing was a bit weird. The weather in Wellington was overcast and threatening rain, which was no surprise given a) Wellingtons' reputation for dreadful weather, b) the miserable wet winter and spring we've had, and c) the fact that summer doesn't appear to have arrived yet. They say this year's terrible weather is something to do with El Nino, so while Europe basked in the longest, hottest summer for years, we suffered the longest, coldest, and wettest winter on record. Anyway, I digress. During the crossing the sky remained black and the wind got stronger and stronger until it was blowing a veritable gale up on the 'sundeck' and we reluctantly had to give up and go inside. However, despite the gale, the sea remained calm, and the ship was hardly rolling at all. I mention this because it seemed to defy the laws of nature, not because I was hoping we'd be thrown about all over the place. Neither of us are good sailors, so we were very lucky.

Our first view of South Island - coming into Marlborough Sounds

The last third of the ferry crossing is within the narrow channels of the Marlborough Sounds. We saw quite a few holiday homes - called baches on the North Island and cribs here down South - which were in remote little bays, surrounded by bush. There are no roads in the Sounds, so the only way to get to these places is by boat. What a wonderful place to spend a holiday! When the weather's good apparently the Sounds can look quite tropical, but with the low, dark clouds today it looked mean and moody, and reminded us a lot of Scotland.

Iain looking windswept

New Zealand does a fair impression of Loch Lomond

Needless to say, by the time we rolled off the ferry it had started raining, and the rain bucketed down for almost the entire two hours it took us to drive to Nelson. I've heard the drive is very scenic, but with the bottom of the clouds hovering just a few metres above the road, we didn't get to see much of it. On the last leg of the journey you drive up a steep and winding road over a range of bush and forestry-clad hills, before finally dropping down the other side into Nelson. As Nelson came into view, the rain stopped, there was a break in the cloud, and we saw sunshine and blue sky for the first time today. Nelson had put on its best clothes to meet us. We're staying a second night, so we'll post our impressions of Nelson, as well as some photos, tomorrow evening. You never know, I might even be able to persuade Iain to put finger to keyboard. It's very late now, and I'm getting to the point where I really need to call it a night. Iain's asleep already. Goodnight, all.

Helen