Day 18- Kaikora-Picton- We had a little lie in and left at 8.30am where we had to hike up the road to where the bus driver was sitting despite all the spaces outside the hostel-silly man! We hopped off for our morning tea at a pretty stop at a beach where despite having said I would be good, shared some choocate cake with Sophie so that wasn't so bad! We jumped back on the us and arrived in Picton at 11.45am where we went and booked our ferry crossing for 2days time. We then went and found the mini bus for our hostel to take us there-the perks of this hostel was you get free chocolate sponge pudding in the evening, and some free internet, and a hot tub-sorted! We went to the supermarket to buy in our provisions. We didn't see the main supermarket so we bought once again at a small expensive smaller shop-so we limited our spending! Cheese toasties for lunch and an afternoon of napping and chilling. Well it was a nice nap until the Germans banged the door open and had a mothers meeting inside the room-please sod off! I think they saw I wasn't overly impressed at being woken up so they left quite quickly! 6.15pm time meant dinner time-so we cooked our chinese honey chicken with our veg and rice -was a good dinner! But the best bit came at 8pm, I was queuing up at 10 to 8 as I was very excited and looked like a right keeno for some chocolate sponge pudding! It was gooooood...not as good as I was expecting...but free is good! Scott must have liked it as he had 4 helpings of that and ice cream!
Day 19- Picton- At precisely 10 to 8 Scott conference called home and I overdosed on coffee! We had 2 delightful walks to go on today as it was a beautiful day! We did the easier walk in the morning and walked up the road to Shakespeare bay. Trying to get to the road up to the bay proved a bit of an effort though as we had to cross a ditch! Scott made it...in flip flops!...I however did not and had a ditchy looking smelly foot-great! It soon became a stoney ditchy foot as I was wearing gladiator shoes- and small stones liked to camp in there! There were two look out points-one overlooking the harbour of Picton and the other overlooking a log farm (thats what I called it anyway!) The views were spiffing. (got to stop using the word cool) Back for a cheese toastie lunch and a game of frisbee-we got better as we went along I think its fair to say and by the end I wasn't just aiming at Scott's head! We now reckon we could become frisbee champions! Watch this space...so back to the afternoon we went on a longer walk to the Queen Charloote lookout point which was a 3hour return walk up the side of the sounds. It had spiffing views! (more so than this morning) On the way we went yo a small bay called Bobs Bay, for some reason about 100wasps had congregated on the path for a social so I ran through them to the bay in the hope they didn't attack me! And then back through again after taking in the view for all of 10seconds! We then continued up the hill to the lookout point. I don't know what is up with this weather-its gone from cold to hot in less than 24hours! I was overheating and going for the sweaty hot and bothered look! This lasted for the entire afternoon! The yukiness was worth it though-the views were very very spiffing! It almost made up for the rubbish weather we had at Milford Sound! We got back from the walk at 4pm and I sat in the library whilst Scott ran back to the hostel to get the laptop for me-haha-thankfully he volunteered otherwise I would have probably lost at rock paper scissors! We sat on the free internet for an hour before de-smellyfying ourselves and making dinner at 5.30pm-a little keeno early I know but I had worked up an appetite and needed to save room for chocolate pudding time! I was excited already! It tasted sooo much better this evening too!
Day 20- Picton-Wellington- 8am start and we were dropped off at the ferry port for check in at 9.30am-what happened to the dam weather again-must have taken over as you can no longer see more than 10m in front of you so the mountains had completely disappeared! There goes my chances of getting some snaps today then! So we plonked ourselves down on the seats and looked down in to the sea! Half an hour into the trip however and the mist had drifted off, and gave the mountains back so it became pretty again! The ferry crossing lasted 3hours and we arrived in the capital at 1.40pm and hopped on a bus which took us to the train stationand we then puzzled on what bus we needed to get to the YHA hostel. Just as we thought we cracked it, when getting on the bus we were told we were on the wrong bus! So we headed over to the correct bus stop and waited 10minutes for the bus- in that time I swear my backpack was getting heavier and heavier! Just think of it as a workout...talking of workouts I haven't done one in a while...better put that on the to do list then! At 3pm we found the YHA was right under our noses when we were hunting for it! We checked in and did a food shop-we chose to have pasta salad for our lunch from the delhi-but it came to $3 alone for a tiny enny weeny portion so we took the one they had already put a delhi sticker on and we accidently on purpose left it down the bread isle...ooops! So we brought bread instead to make cheese sandwiches for a change...NOT! I also jumped for joy when I saw a packet of cheese and onion chrisps as I had been craving them since arriving in New Zealand but had only found cheese and chive or onion but no cheese and onion! What is the world coming to! At least I had found some now! We walked whilst munching our lunch and sat in the free wifi area on the waterfront to get up to date with the world...ie-facebook! We then walked through the centre of the city and saw the beehive (parliament) Scott thought it was funny to keep saying "ooooooh behive will you"-meaning behave....hahaha very funny! He was laughing to himself...alone! On the way back into town, Scott got excited to see a bus pass us with Eastbourne on it-so we took a photo to mark this momentous occasion! We headed through the city back towards the hostel via Mrs Higgins to get two cookies to add to the two cookies we'd already eaten on the boat-sshh don't tell anyone! We had ordered a curry for dinner at the hostel as they buy them in cheaply every tuesday and thursday. It was an improvement on the last one we had in Wanaka! After dinner we walked up to our room. As we walked down the corridoor I said to Scott how I hope we wouldn't have anyone new in our room. As we walked in I saw new bags and said "oh balls" out loud now realising the newbiew was lying reading on the bed-oooooops! What a wally-haha! As I laid chilling out for the evening Scott decided he was going to have a shower and took with him my pink bedhead shampoo and conditioner, my sanctuary body scrub, and my pink venus razor as he wanted a shave! He stole my razor to have a shave...it better not be blunt now Harris or there will be trouble! Anyone who would have seen him though would have probably put money on that he was gay-hahahaha! Then to top things off he used my face and hand moisturiser-to finish off his beauty regime! We then played rummy until someone won by 2 clear games-1hour30minutes later and we were still going! Scott won dammit! I hate losing!
Day 21-Wellington (13/04/2011)- 8am start to go use our free wifi at the harbour in Wellington. Missed breakfast and boy did I head about it all morning-we couldn't find anywhere cheap to eat so we decided to wait until lunch and get onw ith our morning! Scott did have cheese and onion chrisps in his bag-but apparently we are not allowed them for breakfast! Even if that meant we would starve dammit! We walked to the cable car in central Wellington and went on that to the top-it was exactly like the Victoria Peak from in Hong Kong, rtaher than an actual cable car. At the top it overlooked Wellington City and had the botanical gardens to look around. By this point all the blue sky we had had this morning had been eaten by the clouds-I was once again cold! We walked round the botanical gardens, round a tree house and past a scary looking bee lady monument! Scott read all about plant life and told me how he once wanted to be a gardener! You learn something new everyday- twas just glad he didn't become one! We came back down on the tram looking cable car-the ride wasn't actually too far up and down and we could have probably walked the journey quicker also-but never mind! Back to the hostel via Mrs Higgins cookies for lunch-fried egg on toast, and half a cheese toastie! After lunch we went to Te Papa museum which everyone had said we needed to go to as it was amazing...as soon as we walked in I started yawning and that set the tone for the afternoon! We firstly walked the earth part of the museum where we learnt all about earthquakes and faultlines- we went into a small house to experience what it would feel like in an earthquake-this was rather educational for Scott, not so much for me though as I was a survivor of the Loughborough earthquake in 2007! Wahoo! In between yawning we found a cool alien game where you had to choose 4 alien animals to take to NZ with you to see if they and you would survive there and lead a happy life. Unfortunatly on the first attempt we all died (abit dramatic I know for a museum) By the second attempt we had learnt our lesson though and we survived-yay...and apparently lead a life of sunbathing- not sure I'd cope doing that in NZ in winter! Then after that game we did a quiz to see if in 1996 we would have been allowed to move out here. This created problems as I would have been accepted if I had had a job offer...Scott on the other hand would have been rejected regardless of whether he had a job offer! hahaha! Following this blip, there was 30 more minutes of walking around before leaving one of the best museums in the world apparently...NOT! Although it was informative and fun for the million kids, a museum is a museum, its good of you want sending to sleep! All that excitement wore me out and I fell asleep for 2hours before being rudely awoken (this time by Scott not the Germans!) to be told we were going to sit on the harbour front and get our free internet! Back to the hostel after going to the supermarket and bought a whole chocolate cake for $2 which turned out to be just sponge and no icing-not so nice, so Scott ate it all to himself! We had stir fry for dinner and hung out with some cool canadians for the evening.