We were on the ferry from Picton to Wellington this morning to make our way up to the North Island, nice and early at 9am, just to sit in a queue for forty minutes. As we sat there another ESCAPE van pulled up next to us, but when Jo innocently put her window down, the girl hastily put hers up. Not so chatty after all! A bloke in a fluorescent jacket came and tapped on the window and simply said 'didymo', to which we both replied 'did he what'? Not a joke apparently though, as he proceeded to form a sentence that explained it was a fungus spread between freshwater lakes if precautions weren't taken. A simple hello would have made the conversation run so much more smoothly!

As we all pulled off towards the ferry I was horrified to hear the words 'just reverse onto it', but dutifully I put the van into reverse and somehow managed to neither get shouted at by the parking attendants or make a scratch on the van! Dad will be proud!

We went out to watch the scenery as we pulled out of port, but after a while the wind was whipping our hair up a little too much and so we made our way back into the warm. Somehow it was much more bearable when we went back out an hour or so later, although not if we went to the top deck. So we didn't.

The total journey was about 3 hours I think, and so we pulled off into Wellington at 1o'clock, somehow heading straight to the Te Papa museum: the most visited attraction in New Zealand! We managed to spend the next five hours in there looking at the Mauri exhibits, Jade, a giant squid, and a demonstration of an earthquake. Although the earthquake was made less authentic by the rude little tourists who decided they didn't have to wait their turn and could instead barge in front of me and Jo. Not impressed!

To celebrate the fact that we were on the North Island of New Zealand, we had a curry. We went to a little town called Johnsonville and listened to a mixed accent of Indian and Kiwi! A good way to start our time in the north, although the van did smell like an Indian takeaway for the rest of the night!