Mainland Trip - day 1 - to Chch

Well I've made it home! 2 weeks did of course pass in the blink of an eye but I really can't get over how much I did in so little time!

3500k's later I've seen a whole lot more of NZ, and if I tried to tell you about it in 2 or 3 posts they would each be VERY long and take me several hours - so to ease your pain, save me from writing a very long post, and even give you a more extended coverage of my trip I'm going to tell you about one day every day for the next few weeks till I've caught up...

Also I need to say a big thanks to Ritchie for letting me use his very flash camera - it was very useful!

Wellington - Christchurch

So it was about 5.30am and Si and I had to wake up to get ready and be on time for our rendezvous with the Monte Stello. No she isn't a high class call girl, but actually the name of the ferry we took from Wellington to Picton. Thanks EJ for the hook up ;)

The sun rose to a cloudy morning as we entered Queen Charlotte Sound

The boat it's self was actually pretty old... not that I'm complaining but Blue Bridge have blatantly bought the cheapest 4th hand boats they could to carry us across the Straight. At least we got there though, that's all that matters really

Once we hit the Mainland (South Island) we bought a map, some coffee and some petrol and got on our way down to Christchurch. Not the most memorable of cities it must be said, but Simon found a way to amuse himself down at New Brighton (yes UK people - lots of places named after other places - welcome to the New World :P)

I also made an extension to the New Brighton Pier - nothing like the old wooden one, but at least concrete can't burn down :P

Shameless promotion of my website...

That night we stayed with a friend of mine from Nelson - Ingrid - THANK YOU!! Lovely wee house that felt like it had been teleported right out of Golden Bay, and even came complete with pictures of random Indian spiritual people...

We had Japanese for dinner with Ingrid and Pattie, also from Nelson, and I got everyone to try my smoked eel and they all decided it was actually very good -even though Simon had been moaning about how horrible they were only 3 hours earlier - I guess it shows how fickle he is :P

Pattie and me

Ingrid proving that you can take the girl out of The Bay, but you can't take The Bay out of the girl... She knows all too well that nothing gets me going more than an outfit which blends with the outdated furniture... cough cough

So that was day 1. After a few mojitos we went to bed and prepared ourselves for an early start the next day - it had been a relatively quite and relaxing start to our trip, a nice introduction I guess. The next day we were destined for Alexandra and had a long way to go...