South Island with the right foot

The backpackers place we stayed in Wellington was cool, but a bit noisy.  They were partying all night and our room was close to the party 😉

Wellington was a bit like San Francisco, with hills and little Victorian houses. It is far nicer than Auckland. Anyway, early in the morning we woke up, had a shower and headed towards the Ferry that would take us to Picton. We had to be there at 7.30am. It was a bit hard to find but the GPS helped us once again. For those of you interested the gps is a Garmin Oregon 300 with the maps that I found from New Zealand that are Open Source for Garmin. They have proved to be great! All the Points of Interest (POI) are great so every day we put the city where we go, and once in the city the accommodation and we find the backpackers immediately.  The ferry we booked the previous day over the phone. We have a New Zealand sim card in Nuria’s phone and I would say that 50% of the numbers you dial are 0800 so free. The rest are not but is very handy to have a local number and a cheap way to call to the backpackers and other activities to book. The ferry was huge and it takes 3.5 hours to get to Picton in the south island. The day weather today was incredible!. Not a single cloud. We spent most of the trip ouside. The views when you enter the south island are incredible. I took a photo with Nuria’s phone so you can see what I mean. Once in Picton we went to the i-site (information office) and then with all the information in hand we called (a 0800-2-kayak) and booked a 2 day rando+kayak for tomorrow and the day after. First day you drive, they take you with a fast boat up north, then you walk all day and sleep in hut close to the beach. The following day you take the kayak and continue all day until where you leave the car. Cool isn’t it? The weather forecast is good, so we are so looking forward! One full day trekking and one full day with kayak.

After this we drove to the Marlborough wine region where we stopped in a winery, the Highfield winery, where we had first a wine tasting and then lunch, in a beautiful environment. Great food and great wine.

After lunch we stopped in a supermarket to buy some stuff for tomorrow and then we took the “Queen Charlotte” drive and headed to Nelson, where we are now.