January 31, 2019
Today we said goodbye to the North Island. We slept a little later than normal since we had to wait for the car to be delivered before checking out. The car came at 9:15. It is a Honda Accent with only 30,000 km on the odometer, and a free upgrade. It has a nice, quiet drive. It does seem a bit smaller in the storage area, but the back seats fold down which helped everything fit.
We drove to Wellington to the Bluebridge Ferry Terminal. We left late enough to avoid the morning rush hour and it was an easy drive (30 minutes). After we arrived we had a couple of hours to kill before the car ferry departure to the South Island, so we walked along the Wellington waterfront to take in the views. It was a picture perfect beautiful day with blue skies. We stopped at a New World supermarket and bought sandwiches from the deli for lunch. I had a bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese. It was delicious. We split an apple guava fruit drink that reminded me of POG (passion orange guava juice, a favorite drink in Hawaii).
It was nice getting a little taste of the city. We intentionally avoided spending time in the major cities of Auckland and Christchurch for this trip since we prefer to visit the parks and natural areas. But the downtown area of Wellington near the waterfront was very pleasant and a good place to hang out for lunch.
When it was time, Heinrich drove the car onto the ferry and we found seats outside on the upper deck. The views of Wellington as we left the harbour were wonderful.
After we reached the open ocean, fog rolled in and it got uncomfortably windy, so we went inside. But after about an hour it cleared again as we approached the South Island. We went back to our old seats on the upper deck and had a great view of the Queen Charlotte Sound. This portion of the South Island reminds me of the Virgin Islands, especially St. John. It was very uncrowded with beautiful forested green hills surrounded by the ocean. The three and a half hour ferry ride was definitely worth taking.
After we disembarked at Picton Harbour, we drove to our room at the Palmira Lodge. It was only a 10-minute drive. Our room had a private bathroom and a refrigerator. There was a shared kitchen and an outdoor grill. We decided to make use of the grill and went to the supermarket to buy some beef fillet steaks. So we had a very nice steak dinner on the patio of the lodge, for half the cost of eating out at a restaurant. We had baked potatoes and a salad as well.
