Day: September 23, 2019

Saturday 21st September

More driving, more twisty roads I don’t think there’s a straight road in New Zealand. We want to explore the thermal pools and springs in waikite valley. Where boiling hot water bubbles up out of the ground in natural hot springs forming warm waterfalls and rivers.

We spent the night in a campsite that used the hot water to fill up hot tubs to various heat levels. We made the most of it and stayed in the pools until kick out at 9pm just a bit crinkled

The water is run over a series of cascades until it has cooled to a comfortable 35 degrees Celsius. Each pool was a different temperature we found our favourite one and relaxed. bliss.

Friday 20th September

A 3.5 hour choppy ferry ride took us back to the north island. Landing in Wellington just gone midday. We followed a really twisty road up the coast through tight mountain passes with lots of switch backs that did nothing to Seattle our already upset tummies 🤢. The views made it worth it.

As always in New Zealand it’s stunning. We pushed on today as we have to be in Auckland by Thursday and we’d already spent time in Wellington and would like to explore somewhere different before we run out of time.

We spent the night at hawks Bay full of vineyards it’s one of the major grape producing area. Manly for wine not fruit bowls.

Thursday 19th September

We drove from Nelson to Picton today. there’s a short direct route, but we’ve got all day . A pass through Nelson lakes national park, much nicer.

We stopped at Nelson lake to take a photo of the most photographed pontoon in the world. Our photography on a phone camera can’t compete with the big boys. We had to wait for a couple who obviously thought they were professional taking 1001 selfie’s. I’m one of the worlds most patient people but seriously! So in the end we just moved in front of them and took a quick snap

After our photo they carried on, copying our pose and a million more even though other people were waiting. Bloody tourist.

We had lunch in the park by a shallow Pebble river so peaceful the only thing to spoil it was flies, yuk. Sand flies are a real problem it stings when they bite you and afterwards they leave a really itchy spot.

When we got to Picton we had a look around town a small port where we need to catch the ferry tomorrow back to the north island. The car ferry began operating in 1962. Before that it was a small inter-Island ferry from 1899.