The Cook Strait

Since leaving Hanmer (hope you’ve all seen the pic of Medway Road) it’s all gone a bit quiet, but this has been a good thing. It’s given us a chance to reflect on how amazing the South Island has been, as it’s been so difficult to take in everything we’ve seen and done. In terms of scenery there’s so much we’ve still not seen but as time is pressing the only things left to see were the Abel Tasman Park and Marlborough Sounds.

The Abel Tasman Park (old Abe was the first European to set foot in NZ in 1642 – this park, the Tasman Sea & Tasmania are all named in his honour) is a trampers paradise (tramping is the name the Kiwis use for hiking or bush-walking) and as we were still feeling the effects of the glacier we just took a drive out to the beaches at Kaiteriteri & Rabbit Island. Both very pretty & serene, and as they were less than an hour away, a nice getaway for the locals of Nelson. Nelson was a pretty cool little town, some excellent skate ‘n’ surf shops with stupidly helpful assistants (Tash got some cool trainers and I got a new beanie), a few galleries, arts & crafts and a crazy bus service where all the buses have a proper cash register attached to the drivers seat!

We then had a very cool drive around the edges of the Marlborough Sounds (I hope you’ve all remembered our little lesson earlier about the difference between a Sound and Fjord), with some very blue waters and quaint fishing harbours dotted along the way. This brought us to Picton, which was purely a stop off before catching the ferry to the North Island the next day. The ferry crossing through the Cook Strait was fairly uneventful (thankfully), we sailed out through Queen Charlotte Sound, which was nice, watched “the not as good as it should have been mainly due to the awful acting” The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and Bride & Prejudice. We have somehow acquired a “happy peg” from a packet of washing powder and Tash thought it would be funny to make me look like a hobbit on the boat, and use the peg as an “Elven broach” as in LOTR, as you can see below. We then alighted in Wellington.


It’s very obvious why the NZ capital city is called Windy Welly; scarves are a definite must to stop the wind chill on your neck. It’s scary to think that the population of Welly is the same as the Medway Towns. Apart from the wind and general grubbiness of the streets (much like Melbourne) this was quite a cool city. Straight after getting off the ferry we went to this awesome museum called Te Papa and ended up spending nearly the entire day exploring all the exhibits, only breaking up our visit for the best Tacos ever at the food market nearby. The next day was intended to be a cultural & photo-taking walk around the city but after the disappointing Empire Cinema (where the LOTR films had their world premieres) we got a bit side tracked by the fantastic shops in Cuba Street. This was like all the best bits of a high street, Oxford St, Covent Garden & Camden all rolled into one. There were some amazingly cool retro stores (Mike & Stu – you boys would’ve been penniless), little cafés, record stores, clothes boutiques and shoe shops. So far every shop assistant has been SO friendly & helpful, but Max clothes store seemed to be staffed by the only bunch of miserable, snooty cows in NZ. One of the emaciated, little snotslags had the cheek to tell a customer, who happened to be Tasha, that the jeans she was trying on “look awful, you’re far too fat for those, you need them much bigger”!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Suffice to say we left immediately and took our custom elsewhere. And there was quite a lot of custom to be taken. The very thin and effeminate rock boy in Jay-Jays helped Tash find a pair of very sexy jeans (and a couple of tops to match), I found the Vans I wanted and the extremely helpful Liezl (Joe – you would have liked her) sorted Tasha out with some new boots after about an hour trying on several pairs (INSERT Wellington Boot gags here). We never did get our photos done but seeing as we drove past the buildings we wanted to see on the way out of Welly, we really didn’t miss much other than the interior of Old St Paul's, which was being used for evensong.

So after our shopping break it’s back to the culture with the drive to art deco Napier.