Road trip

Our road trip began on January 12th when we drove all day down to Wellington which is the capital of New Zealand. It was about 600km which is not that great a distance but there are only freeways around the Auckland area and the rest of the country has two way roads that wind and twist all over the place and take you through every small town that there is. It makes for interesting driving as long as you are not in a hurry and we definatly are not. Wellington is at the bottom of the North island and is probably one of the windiest places in New Zealand. The city is on a bay with high hills behind it so is protected from most of the wind. We stayed in the appropriately named hotel The Captain Cook Hotel which was right downtown where we could walk around and see some of the sites. The next morning we boarded the ferry to the South island which is supposed to take three and a half hours but the winds in Cook Strait was blowing 60-70 Knots so it took four and a half hours. The ferries look to be from the baltic region of Europe and can manage to sail even with these high winds. Passing the airport we saw a 737 do a missed approach. Ah the young guys don't seem to have the courage we had in the old days!! Anyway we arrived safely in Picton with one problem with the car as it had been outside and had taken a lot of spray and was coated in a heavy layer of salt. They seem to be used to this problem as they had a man with a hose spraying the cars that were outside down with fresh water. It was a good thing that we ran into some heavy rain showers on the way over to Nelson. We arrived there to visit our cruising friends Graham and Karen (s/v Red Herring) who we met first in Turkey and are now home in Nelson. They had waited dinner for us and had a surprise of another cruiser who we had last seen in New Caledonia visiting them as well. It was great to catch up and seemed like it was yesterday that we saw them last. We spent three nights with them and enjoyed some of the areas that we had time to see. Marian did make contact with a second cousin Racheal Rayan and we had a wonderful afternoon with her and her husband and two daughters. It was amazing the resemblance the two ladies had to each other. Driving down the south coast is a wondrful drive with curvey roads and some wonderful views and the best thing is there is allmost no trafic. It would be a great place to do a motor cycly tour. We stopped at the pancake rocks and further along walked up to a glacier that is receeding up a valley. Lots of snow capped mountains down here even in summer. Three days later we arrive in Queenstown and stayed here for three days. This area reminds us of the Okanagan and especially Kelowna being on a lake and all. Here we enjoyed the buskers in town and had some good meals out. We did manage a game of golf at Arrowtown which was fun and the first for Marian in many years. After three days it was time to move again so drove to Milford sound which takes you up through the mountains then through a long tunnel and then down to the west coast town of Milford. We stayed the night in a lodge that caters to backpackers who spend three days trekking across the mountains. Looking and talking to some of them it would seem that it is not that difficult to do. There was a lot of new snow on the mountains when we left the next morning and clear skys so we were treated to some wonderful mountain views. We stopped along the way and did a three hour walk. Walking is the main passtime of Kiwi's and they have groomed trails all over the country with small cabins that you can use if you are doing an overnight trek. Driving south from here we ended up outside Invercargill and stayed at a B&B for two nights in a small town called Riverton. The only place on earth south of us other than antartica is the southern tip of south america so the wind and weather down here are most unpredictable and fierce. For us we had some rain and a little wind so it was good to have a couple of quiet days. We took the southern senic route along the south coast which was rugged but pretty. They even have penguins swimming around down here. We are very happy that we are driving around here as it would be interesting sailing with many days of waiting for weather and with few safe anchorages. We ended up in Dunedin which is a very Victorian town with many well preserved old homes and buildings. From here we drove inland up towards Mount Cook which is the largest mountain in the country. I believe it to be over 12000 feet so about the size of Mt Baker. We had a absolutly clear and calm day so after finding a B&B which actually turned out having us rent a three bedroom house with all the amenities, we drove up to the mountain. It is very impressive with lots of memorabilia of Sir Edmund Hillory on display. The view from our abode was across brown fields of grass with Mt Cook in the middle. A great place for a few days as we had use of the BBQ and could cook our own dinners. This was one of our favorite places. From this idealic place we drove down through gorges winding our way to Christchurch. Another boat story is when we were in Jordan in 2007 we met a couple who gave us ther card and said if ever we were in Christchurch to give them a call. So we did. It ended up that they owned the Copthorn hotel by the airport, which did not have much earth quake dammage, and set us up in a very nice suite. We had a very nice meeting with them but I don't think we would have recognized them at all but just the same it was good to get a local perspective on the future of this once beautiful city. We say this as we went into town, which is all fenced off, and found it to be very surreal with a whole city shut down and grass growing through the walkways and streets. It seems that the whole city has to come down and it will take years to rubuild it if ever. There are questions of even if it should be rebuilt. We had taken a bus to town as parking is difficult and as we were waiting for the bus back to the hotel the ground started shaking and the bus stop sign was gyrating. We were happy not to be in building! Next we met up with Graham and Karen as they were visiting Pauline, Graham's sister living north of Chrischurch, and followed them back to Nelson. We went out to dinner with Marian's cousin Rachael at her mothers house, Anne, who is doing very well and who lived in Ireland for much of her adult life. Her husband, Thady, who was Irish and Marian's mother first cousin, had promised her that when they retired they would move to New Zealand and they did! We had a very good evening with lots of talk of all the Irish family. We then had a farewell dinner with Karen and Graham the next day and left for Picton and the ferry back to the North Island. Our return trip was in much better weather so we drove north a couple of hours. The next day we had get homeitis so after picking up our spare anchor which we had regalvanized we headed for Gulf Harbour and home. We arrived back on Kilkea II after three weeks and 5600km driving. It is a much bigger country than we thought. The people we met were great and we would recommend New Zealand for a holiday to all.