Friday, August 26 – Wellington to Picton to Nelson
This morning, Bev and I got up early so we could catch the ferry to the south island at 8:25. The trip was very nice. Bev and I spent some time outside on the upper deck enjoying the sun and being out on the water. We also walked around the ferry. I’ve never been on a boat for an extended period of time, so my sea legs were not very stable. Every few metres I would either have to pause or stumble. But it was still fun and a nice way to spend the morning.
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| View from the ferry |
When we landed in Picton, Bev and I got on the Magic Bus to continue on to Nelson. Our bus driver was named Cam, and we were on his bus until we reached Christchurch. He actually didn’t drive from Picton to Nelson though because it was his last day of holiday; he was just along for the ride.
Shortly after we pulled away from Picton, we found out that we were stopping at a lace that had wine tasting for $2. Bev and I had toyed with the idea of going wine tasting somewhere, and this sounded like the perfect opportunity to us. We were able to try four wines, three white and one red. This was Bev’s first time having alcohol, and we both agreed that we are not very keen on wine. But it was a fun experience, and we learned how to properly taste wine.
Another activity we found out about on the bus was scenic microlight flying. It sounded really fun to me, so Bev and I signed up to do that. We arrived in Nelson around 4 p.m. and we got picked up for the microlight immediately after we checked into our backpackers. Cam, our bus driver, and Nina, a girl on the bus, came too because they were going skydiving, which was right next to the microlight place.
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| Photo credit: Bev |
Bev and I thought that we were going to go in the same microlight glider, but no, they are only made for two people, the pilot and a passenger. We decided that I should go first. I put on a flight suit and a helmet with a headset. The flight was about an hour long, and we flew along the coast and over the Tasman National Park. The scenery was beautiful, and riding in the microlight was so much fun! I would totally do it again if I ever got the chance.
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| Photo credit: Bev |
We got back to the backpackers around 7. We didn’t have food for dinner, so we walked to the store to buy food. It didn’t take us long, and then we started back to the backpackers. The store was just a few blocks away from the backpackers, and after a bit, we realized that we should have already passed the backpackers. We were told that Nelson is not a big city, so getting lost should not have happened, but it did. However, we turned around and discovered that we’d forgotten the entrance to the store was around the corner from the street we had used to get there. We made it safely back to the backpackers and made dinner.
After dinner, we found a whiteboard in the common area. We started playing hangman, but we were not very good at thinking up words. Bev and I ended up doing continuous hangman and played for at least half an hour without him dying. When we were done playing hangman, we noticed a dartboard on the wall. We started playing (not keeping score), and it turned out to be really fun. It entertained us for at least an hour, and we tried all sorts of different ways of throwing the darts: left-handed, under the leg, backward, etc. The most exciting part was that we each got a bull’s eye! It’s pretty impressive considering we both also missed the board on more than a handful of occasions. By the end of the night, we were getting a little hysterical.
Saturday, August 27 – Nelson to Greymouth
The trip from Nelson to Greymouth went well. On the bus, Bev and I found out about a tour of Monteith’s Brewery. Even though Greymouth is extremely small, a taxi picked us up and drove us to the brewery. A lot of other people on the bus came, too. The brewery was undergoing renovation, so we didn’t actually get to go in. We watched a DVD about the production line. Then we went to a bar area and got to taste their seven different kinds of beer and their crushed apple cider. Bev and I learned that we like light beer better than dark, but apple cider was our favourite.
Our brewery tour included a meal voucher for Railway Hotel, a bar. We all went there and ate dinner. There was an All Blacks game that night, so we stayed to watch. Bev had started losing her voice (she was sick), so we practiced signing to each other so she didn’t have to yell above the music at the bar. It actually worked out pretty well. The All Blacks played Australia and lost 20-25. It was not a very good game, but hopefully they will do much better in the World Cup. It was also fun hanging out with the people on our bus.
We were staying in a six-person room at the backpackers with four other people from our bus. We all left the bar at the same time to walk back. And lo and behold, we get lost, as a group, in Greymouth, a place that people should definitely not be able to get lost in. It didn’t help that we were all trying to follow each other. Luckily, we figured out where we were and made it back to the backpackers.
Sunday, August 28 – Greymouth to Franz Josef
On the way to Franz Josef, we stopped in a town that had a lot of jade jewellery stores. The pendants were very pretty but also expensive. We stopped at a place where we could pan for gold, and a few people did that, but Bev and I did not.
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| Franz Josef glacier |
We arrived in Franz Josef around 11:30. Bev and I originally planned to sign up for the half-day glacier hike of the Franz Josef glacier, but then we found out that we could do a kayaking trip on Lake Mapourika. We opted to do that, and I am really glad we chose that trip instead. We were still able to walk to a lookout to see the glacier (it is scary to see pictures of the glacier in the past and see how much has melted).
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| Photo credit: Glacier Country Kayaks |
It turns out that Bev and I were the only ones who signed up to go kayaking, so we got a personal trip with a Canadian guide named Greg. The water was a bit choppy going out because of the wind, but it turned really calm. My favourite part was paddling through an estuary and seeing the crystal-clear reflections in the water; they were breathtaking. Bev and I did get stuck a couple times, but we managed. We also managed to run into each other more than once in the middle of the lake.
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| Photo credit: Glacier Country Kayaks |
The backpackers we stayed at was really nice. When we got there, there were cookies made especially for Magic Bus travellers that were delicious. There was a hot tub (which we didn’t end up using), a nice kitchen, a big TV room with lots of movies we could borrow, free popcorn, free vegetable soup at 6, and Bev and I got a four-person room to ourselves with an en suite bathroom.
Two girls from our bus invited us to watch “August Rush” with them. Bev and the two girls had never seen the movie before, and they all liked it.
