This was a very good day, which started pretty poorly, with weather that was not encouraging. We woke up to a stiff breeze; well, we were parked half way up a Wellington hillside, and firmly amongst the clouds. It was thick cloud, so any step outside the motorvan left you very damp.
We left the campsite for the ferry about 45 minutes before the check in time. Although the trip to the port should only take five minutes it was 9 o'clock in the morning (and, yes, there is a rush hour in Wellington as we discovered when we reached the motorway into town and joined a very slow moving queue.) Whilst it was a slow journey it did in fact only take us about 20 minutes. After checking in we were sent to park at the side of the harbour. It was there that we discovered that the wind had obviously gathered pace coming down the hill to the sea! It was now no longer a stiff breeze but a van-rocking gale. The people who were parked next to us on the quay began to look a little nervous but we were reassured as if the wind got too strong they would stop us falling in to the sea – selfish we know but at times like these it's any port in a storm (sorry!).
We were delayed on the quay for a long time and didn't actually start to be loaded until after the ferry had been due to sail. In fact we were an hour late leaving. Apparently there had been some problem with the gangplank mechanism that had to be resolved before we were allowed on. They were very efficient and we were quickly parked and sitting up in the lounge. The ferry was very well equipped with a shop, cafe and, even WiFi. As an aside, we have found that there is very limited free WiFi available and in places where it exists the service is often very poor. Of the campsites we have stayed on so far they have all claimed to have WiFi but on two it didn't seem to be working, on another you had to be close to the site office to get a signal. To be fair, we have not tried our luck at an internet cafe as yet.
However, as we sat on the quayside, the sky began to clear and by the time we were an hour in to the three hour journey it was brilliant sunshine and remained so for the rest of the day, reaching 30.5C by the time we reached our campsite for the night in Nelson. The trip up Queen Charlotte Sound, presumably named after George III's wife, was spectacular. Our only difficulty was that Bert's camera chose this moment to stop taking photographs! It was still capable of taking videos but we can't get those uploaded at the moment. However we did manage to take one or two which we are attaching.
The journey from Picton to Nelson skirted the waters of Queen Charlotte Sound and Pelorus Sound and the scenery was all that we had been lead to believe. We stopped at one bay to discover a campsite actually on the beach. We drove on to Nelson and stopped at The Warehouse where Bert bought another camera. He had checked online for a replacement and had discovered that The Warehouse was doing a special offer, 50% off, on a Sanyo. He could have bought it cheaper on-line but as we haven't time to wait for delivery picking it up from a store was the next best thing!
The campsite at Nelson is in the town itself, very compact but the surroundings and the facilities are excellent. We will be able to walk in to town tomorrow and look around.
We have revised our plans for the rest of the holiday as we feel that we have spent too much time on the road and not enough time looking at the things we have come to New Zealand for, the scenery, special attractions and so forth. We have taken the decision that we will only be covering the northern and central areas of South Island, down as far as Christchurch. This will give us the time to do the things we want to do. We intend to visit the i-Site office (tourist office) in Nelson tomorrow and with their assistance create a new itinerary. Therefore if there is anyone out there who has only been with us in the hope they would hear about Milford Sound or Dunedin or Queenstown then they might as well stop reading now (but we hope you won't! S.)
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