We have had several nice days in Wellington where we visited the Te Papa National museum and a funicular railway up Mt. victoria overlooking the city, and a drive up the Hutt valley where there were several interesting areas. Gloria wanted to see a paua shell factory in Carterton, and we found an interesting place called the Aotearoa Stonehenge, the new zealand version of Britain's Stonehenge. The best part was standing exactly in its centre and hearing your voice echo back slightly changed and amplified! saw lots of sheep and cattle farms.
We had a leisurely saturday morning before dropping off the rental car at the ferry terminal in Wellington and catching the afternoon ferry to Picton. It takes about 3 relaxing hours to cross to the south island, where we picked up a new rental car and drove a short distance to our YHA hostel last night in Picton. We met a nice older couple from Toronto!
Today was our 34 th anniversary so we ate out for dinner in Kaikoura, on the east coast after spending the day tasting wines in Marlborough area (much like Kamloops) and driving the coast highway which reminded us of the Oregon coast.
We did a short day hike along a limestone bluff overlooking the Kaikura coast. We are seeing a few more mountains here. Mt. Fyffe, the highest local peak is about 1640 meters. Tomorrow is supposed to rain. We plan to drive to Christchurch, pretty much following the fault line all the way.
We have heard that the devastating earthquake left the centre in shambles. We will spend a few days in and around Christchurch, driving up over Arthur's Pass to Greymouth on the west coast. We will then make our way to the Fox and Franz Joseph areas, then on to Te Anau and Milford Sound. More on that later.
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