...and touchdown! We're on the South Island. I've never been this far down below the equator. I'm quite enjoying the fact that the moon and stars are upside down, the storms spin the other way, and the sun goes from right to left here. So far (even though we haven't really gotten that far. We're in Bleinheim now), the South Island is much greener than the North Island. I like.
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We caught the ferry from Wellington yesterday. I like Wellington. Mostly because it reminds me of San Francisco, but also because it's really hilly, it's next to the sea and its city centre is small enough to walk around in less than an hour. Just my kind of deal. Here's a photo of the hill leading to a lookout point called Mt. Victoria.
Here's a picture of a San Francisco-lookalike suburb near the airport,
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We took the Bluebridge ferry from Wellington to Picton. The journey lasted just a little over three hours and was quite nice. I'll let Kyle put up the photos he took from the deck.
We had to wait for a while to board the ferry. It takes a while to arrange all the vehicles going onboard. This is what happens when Kyle gets bored. He takes things apart. Here are before and after photos which happened while we were waiting...
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We arrived in Picton and after all the excitement of crossing from one island to the other, felt completely ravenous. Kyle wanted pizza, and I wanted chocolate. We drove around and didn't see anything we liked so decided to drive on to the next big town. So here we are in Bleinheim (famous for wineries).
We found a Pizza Hut, but well, decided we didn't really want to spend too much money satisfying our cravings (since we really are watching the pennies). So we decided to use our burners, and walked into Countdown (grocery store) and got ready-made pizza crusts, cheese, some sauce, vegetarian cajun sausages (someone, point me towards more vegetarian-friendly supermarkets. It's been a chore finding vegetarian/halal/kosher food items so far), and a Sara Lee chocolate pudding, which to my pleasant surprise, was halal! I've actually found quite a few Australian-made products with halal authentication.
Well done, Australia! Two thumbs up, wahey!
Pudding (yum), we tried cottage cheese on the first pizza (watery), me fooling around with the sauce (looks like Kyle), and the outcome...really good pizza (finally).
Kyle's quite handy with the grill. My hero.
Lesson learnt: Don't walk into a grocery store when hungry. You tend to overbuy. We finished all the food between the two of us (two pizzas last night and one for lunch today) but we didn't really have to eat that much in one sitting.
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It's after lunchtime now and we're still in Bleinheim. Kyle's figured out that we blew a fuse which is why the 12V and stereo wasn't working. So we're gonna go get a new one right after I finish this entry and be on our way to Kaikoura where we hope to spot some whales, dolphins or seals.
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I had projected that we would take about six weeks to do the South Island, until I looked at the map this morning and realised we're not that far from Christchurch already and that's almost the midpoint on this side of the coast.
Just as we were getting comfortable with living in The Beast, we two crazies have come up with yet another idea to throw us off your our rockers...
...so what would happen if we sold The Beast, and continued on on motorbike? It would only be for a few weeks, and we would definitely be prepping for Around The World On Wheels then.
Don't worry, don't worry...we haven't made up our minds just yet. We still have to weigh the pros and cons, mainly whether or not we'd be spending more money on motorcycle than we are with the van.
We'll think it through.
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LATEST UPDATE ON DAISY: Kyle just knocked her over and a few of her buds came off!!! I've got pictures which I will post once we get our batteries recharged. She'll be receiving extra care for the next few days. Pray for her recovery.
KYLE!!!
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Love in greener pastures. Where hair matters not.
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