The Ferry

Wellington is not only a cool city with a vibrant art scene, but the place where you catch the ferry (The Interislander: www.interislander.co.nz/ ) to get shuttled from the North Island to the South (you get dropped off in Picton). For the privilege, you pay about NZ$220 (currently about US$130)—about NZ$55 per person and NZ$116 for the car, so it’s not cheap! For some reason I totally dorked out on this and was incredibly excited about the idea of driving our van onto a ginormous boat.

Driving our van onto the Interislander.

They loaded us onto the lower deck of the boat along with other cars, camper vans, and even semis! And they really pack you in there…we were shocked by how accurately they could determine how many cars and trucks could fit on the lower deck since they don’t really know what you’re driving until you show up.

The boat is very large and luxurious (actually, for no particular reason, it reminded me a lot of the huge spaceship in Wall-E, even though there weren’t hovercrafts or anything). There is a large sitting room, where televisions were playing the Ellen Degeneres show (incidentally, I wonder how it is for Kiwis…all the major movies that they see are in another accent), and they even have a theater where they show movies (though we were advised by Patty not to watch this because it makes you seasick). We were actually quite surprised by how calm the ride was, especially since it was storming outside. But then again, neither of us really get seasick so we’re not reliable sources of information on this front. On the way to the South Island, you meander through a number of bays around several little islands and peninsulas. It takes you 3 hours to get across and all in all it was a very nice way to spend the afternoon, especially since the weather was bad out.

The Storm

When we arrived in Picton, we drove our van off the boat into…an incredible storm. I mean, it was really coming down. Our plan was to drive from Picton to Nelson that night, where Bob lives. Bob is a friend that we met on the plane from LAX to Fiji (and he was on our flight from Nadi to Auckland too). He is an ex-pat of sorts; he lives part of the year in Colorado, part of the year in Maine, and part of the year in New Zealand. Not too bad a program, if you ask me! He invited us to visit him when we passed through Nelson, and we readily agreed.

There was just one problem: it is about 2 hours from Picton to Nelson, and though the boat effectively sheltered us from the weather, once we got off the boat, we realized it was bad—really bad. This is the worst weather Jeremy or I have ever driven in. Not sure if you will be able to see in these photos, but there were entire fields that were flooded over. Out the window there? Yeah, that’s normally all GRASS, not water.

We were really relieved once we made it to Bob’s house. It took a little longer than expected and we considered pulling over a few times, but we made it. The best part? Apparently this is a normal-sized storm for Kiwis. I guess that’s why they are such hearty folk.