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An early start today - the pleasure of a 5 hour drive to Wellington and the ferry check-in at 13.00, so we both slept fitfully later in the night, and for the first time the night seemed to pass slowly, must be getting adjusted… It rained through the night, turning to drizzle in the early hours, but an incredibly quiet spot up at Robin's nest. We were eating breakfast when Caitie dropped in to say goodbye on her way into work - she was obviously very pleased to see us!
First challenge was Robin's driveway - forgot to mention that it has something like 3 hairpins and a 1 in 3 gradient! Span the wheels last night getting up at one point, but made it down today. Heavy mist, nothing to be seen in any direction for hours and many miles. The road follows the curve of the volcano, so looking to the left at any time would show it, had it not been so foggy!
There was so much on this leg that it's hard to recall. Things that stand out are stopping just once for a leak at a strange roadside cabin (J reports a 2 on the usual scale, I used a bush!), getting diesel and attempting to get cooker LPG only to find the adapter cross-threaded according to the highly-skilled attendant. It just looked like a left-hand thread to me, and this was confirmed when we called the camper base! So tomorrow is Gas Day amongst whatever else we do. There was also a drive-by study of the popular Stock Launch Ramps - see explanation elsewhere!
The thing about driving in NZ is that there are always hills or mountains involved, either going up or down, or in the distance to be met shortly, which is a pretty good metaphor for much f the country's history. Mr. Kruse also can always find lots to say about Maori-Euro relations, usually involving one or other or both parties getting hacked up. Seems to me that everybody does much the same thing - before the Pakeha arrived, Maoris hacked each other up on a pretty flimsy basis, and when we got here, we hacked each other up instead, usually on the pretext of or protest against land grabs. The moa and other extinct species suffered most I suspect. The only chap who seems reasonable was the Maori chief inspired by Ghandi's non-violence who left his followers with the message of peaceful resistance when marched off to incarceration (another Kruse word-fave).
We lunched waiting for the ferry, which was easy to find - Interislander, apparently the best choice according to Kara last night! A huge number of very noisy Harleys arrived, accompanied by lots of weathered types and their biker burds, clad in horrendous amounts of badged, fringed and laced-up leather. Travelling for more than a few minutes with exhausts that loud at any kind of speed would drive me up the wall… This was the Wellington HD Club chapter, presumably popping over to Picton for a Pissup. How alliterative. There were other amusing people, including a young lady singing to a self-accompanying ukelele - Jen reckons she'd have thrown her out of the car hours ago! The front seat people seemed nonplussed.
Trucks went on first - Neville had told us a story of a trucker who arrived late, and had to reverse his B-train up the ramp so he could drive it off. This was incredibly impressive when we saw the ramp - 200 metres at least of very curved and steep concrete! Us campers went on last. Poo.
The actual ferry trip was pretty cool from a scenery point of view - there were two lots of dolphins spotted, one close to Wellington (me only) and another near Picton (both of us). I think we can go home now Jen has seen dolphins!! Now we're parked in the down market but wondrously cheap Spring Creek campsite, debating how to manage the remainder of our S Island time - to Milford or not to Milford, that is the question! Charles is up at the bach in Lake Clearwater, back tomorrow at 5 so now I've put time on the phone we can call him… that will clarify the rest of the week! Right, time for bed… hopefully undisturbed by bikers doing burnouts and doughnuts on the road nearby!
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