Kayaking and ferry boats

The morning after arriving at the Jugglers' Rest, we breakfasted on fresh homemade bread and jam provided by Nikki, the hostel owner, and then her boyfriend Nathan took us kayaking around Picton harbour ($55 each). We hadn't kayaked before, so he spent some time on dry land getting us properly fitted with the safety gear and aware of how to sort ourselves out if we ended up in the water, and then we paddled off. Nathan was full of information about what we were seeing, and pointed out sting rays on the sandy floor as well as jellyfish, mullet, and various birds. Even though the harbour has a busy shipping lane, the water is kept crystal clear by thousands of mussels, which act as natural filters. I don't think they'd be good to eat, but they really do keep the water clean!



After a fun couple of hours in our little kayak, it was time to say goodbye to Nathan and switch to a slightly larger mode of transport - the Interislander ferry. Our departure time was 1.15pm, but because we had a car we had to check in by 12.15pm at the latest, which added an extra hour to the three-hour journey. We had time to make up sandwiches for our lunch and get some reading material sorted out before we got anywhere near the ferry itself. On board, we quickly made our way up to Deck 10, which is the sun deck, and found a bench so we could watch the world go by. Apparently this is one of the prettiest ferry journeys in the world, and I can certainly see how people would think so. The multiple inlets and tree-clad hills all around us as we left the South Island certainly did look better than what I've seen around other ports.

We found ourselves sitting next to another Irish girl and got chatting to her for most of the journey, so it didn't seem like long at all until it was 4.30pm and we had arrived in Wellington. I took the wheel in case the traffic was very busy or fast, and Skry navigated to get us to the Top Ten campsite in Lower Hutt ($31.50/night). This was quite a distance from Wellington, 10km I think, but is apparently the closest campsite. When we got there, the site itself was large, well laid out, and had good facilities, but the gound was stony and rock-hard, the location was noisy and smelly (it's in the middle of what looks like an industrial estate, and there was a lot of noise from nearby lorries), and our tent site backed onto a golf course with lots of young men shouting and hallooing at each other. We decided that our best option was to spend as little time there was possible, so we got a bus ($4 each) into Wellington itself. The plan was to go to the observatory, which is apparently open late on Tuesday nights when the sky is clear, so we found the cable car to the Botanic Gardens ($5 each, one way) and walked over to it, only to be disappointed to find it firmly closed and a sign saying that it is only open late on Friday and Saturday. I don't know where the difference in information came from, but we found ourselves in the Botanic Gardens at dusk with nothing to do apart from looking down over the city, so we just walked back down the hill, went for a pint, and got the bus back to Lower Hutt.

The plan had been to spend at least two nights in Wellington and see all the sights, but after such a bad start neither of us wanted to prolong this particular visit. The next morning (having found two golf balls in the vicinity of our tent that hadn't been there when we set it up), we got a refund for the second night and headed north to Napier.