South

Wahey! Okay, so we got to Wellington, both instantly fell under its spell and then realised one very annoying fact. Wellington, by car, is a bad thing. The streets are narrow, car-lined, turny and steep. There is no free parking, or even cheap parking. So in a shock spontaneous decision, we booked passage on a ferry to the South Island for that evening and jumped aboad. We are making plans to return on a city tour (sans inconvienient car) in late November. In the meantime, we were on one of the most picturesque and famous ferry cruises in the world.
The three hour journey took us through the choppy aquamarine waters of the Cook Strait and then into the Queen Charlotte Sounds, thickly forested inlets and mountains, all aglow in the evening light. We arrived in Picton at about 9.30 and drove off into the night.
Luckily, we found a spot to pull over in for the night quite quickly and then marvelled at the densely packed sky. At night, the pitch black above is scattered with stars, so many more than in the Northern Hemisphere. With no recognisable constellations, but a clear view of the Milky Way we spent a while trying to take long exposure shots from the roof of the car.

The next morning, we set off in the sunshine and drove through the mountainous regions out of Picton and towards Nelson. We decided to take a random road off the main highway towards Okiwi Bay in the hope of good scenery. Well, the road was so crazily bendy it was like constant deja vu. Seriously, curve around one bend and you are staring into the face of another, identical bend. It made both our heads dizzy. With a bit of a drop on the one side, and a landslide prone cliff on the other, we were climbing further and further up a mountain with no visible destination. Eventually, we even hit a cloud, and could see no further than about 10 metres in any direction. It made for exciting driving!
We made it (in one piece) to Okiwi Bay to discover...a sleepy village with a large, beautiful bay, sheltered by forested mountains wreathed in mist and a pebble beach covered in creamy pink and purple shells. We set up for the night at the local holiday park, as large signs forbade us from parking anywhere else and we were not driving back up that road in the dark!
We happily ate banana cake purchased earlier that day ( and meant to last for a good few days to come, ahem) and planned the next few days ahead.

Today, we left the campsite and drove back down the mountain, which was happily mist-free. After seeing nothing but trees for kilometres, we arrived in Nelson. Nelson is a beach town filled with arts and crafts in an established wine region. After arriving, we headed straight for the supermarket, this time an alive and kicking Woolworths, although with green instead of red.After a substantial restocking of our Spaceship's larder (in which we have now included classic Kiwi buys such as 'CookieTime', 'Milo' cereal and 'Pineapple Chews' for long car journeys) we headed to Tahunanui beach to enjoy the sun. This beach was especially engaging, due to the view - overlooking the long golden sands and the clear waves, were giant snowy peaked mountains. It was quite bizarre, but spectacular at the same time. We sat for a while, building a garden of shells before moving on.
We decided to visit the WOW museum, an oddly coincedental pairing of interests that had our names on it. 'WOW' - or 'World of WearableArt' is a gallery combining wearable art pieces as well as a classic and vintage car collection. Wow is the right word - the costumes are so fantastically detailed and so creatively put together that they are amazing to behold. The exhibition was cleverly done, and the clothes held both Alex and I entranced. One dress was made exclusively of recycled clear plastic, another was constructed of geometric triangles. One was made of over 1000 Chinese paper fans, while yet another was crafted from gleaming metal. The range was inspiring and it would be a fun, if intensive competition to enter. On the car side, they were literal carriages with engines instead of horse, shiny and powerful. We looked them over, but they could hardly compare to the genius of the WearableArt.
With hunger starting to stir and a need to find a place to sleep encroaching on our afternoon, we drove out to the Miyazu Gardens, a Japanese garden on the outskirts of Nelson. After touring the garden in its meditative state, we have parked up in the carpark and are set to cook our dinner. Then, we shall have to sample the CookieTime. We have already seen full size planes completely coated in pictures of these cookies, so they better meet expectations!