Day 3 ~ Wellington to Picton

We're off to Wellington by plane from NPY. It was such a tiny neat airport. Something about the angle of the sunlights, created such a nice feeling about the airport, getting ready to board that twin engine plane. Almost movie-like, you know, when it's almost the end of the movie and the audiences are swept through an awesome scenery of sun lit airstrip with bright blue sky as a backdrop..... Ah well, maybe it's the foolish romantist in me that's talking.

Spent a night in Wellington. The city has a lot of water around. Not the kind of city I would like to live in. Auckland maybe, NPY could be a bit too quiet for us, but we both love Arrowtown.

The next day we started off early around 8am. After grabbing a quick bite of pastries and strong coffee down @ Coffee Bean, we rushed off in a taxi to catch up the earliest ferry to Picton. We got in just in time... phew! Ferry was a bit too long and I wasn't really in the mood to be excited - coffee hadn't kicked in yet. Besides it's still too early.

Got off Picton around noon to pick up the train tickets. We had around an hour before the train arrived, so we had a time to explore a bit of Picton. Hmmmfff, already craving for real asian meals, lunch was a bit of a disaster. Kiwis food are still way too bland for me. Second option would be fast food joints, KFC or McD, which of course don't exist here.

I've never sat this long on a train before. This by far, the longest train ride I've ever had. TI was a 5-hour ride. Whahahaha.... thank God my babe was there with me, otherwise I would definitely have gone insane hearing the entire conversation of the two groups sitting behind us - a German old grandma who loudly shared the story of her life, which was very very very long... she hasn't finished when we got off the train. The other one was a group of Americans *you know how loud they can be* sharing their "amazing" travel stories, always topping up one another. I felt like I'm tuning into one of those "marathon amazing race" program on AXN.

At one point I reached the "I've had enough of this" and just tuned out completely, they're voices simply become incomprehensible gibberish. Christchurch was the last stop. Whoa, finally! Train ride was interesting but I wouldn't do it again, no thanks! Now, this is the city that seems livable.

The next morning were a bit easy, we didn't get up until late. No tight schedule. All we needed to do was to pickup our campervan at Maui, near the airport. We got the 4 berths campervan, a bit more space than we needed, but kitchen was just perfect!!! Full cabinets of cutleries, pots, plates, bowls and glasses. Tiny fridge that fits just enough for the road. The next thing was stock up for the road.

South Island, here we come!