Wednesday January 5th

The day began unexpectedly at 230 am when Darren could not sleep through the snoring coming from the other side of the room and relocated to the sitting room after moving the single mattress in the dark of night. After finally falling asleep near 5am, it was very bright out and the birds were up and quite vocal.

By 830, it was time to start packing for our next big travel day. We had a light breakfast of toast and jam and packed all our suitcases and were ready to depart by 10. We had Pat take our photo overlooking the Sound and we loaded the Ute and headed for the dock. We got the boat packed and headed back to our car at Te Mahia. Thankfully it was still there! We packed and said our goodbyes as we trekked down the long windy road back to civilization.

Darren chose the longer route with far less curves, but alas – there are no shortcuts in life. We had to wait numerous times for the trucks and laoders to clear debris and soil from the road after the immense flooding that had washed away parts of the road and dropped many trees on it over the last week. We eventually made our way out of the Sound and back to Picton. We found a little take out place and grabbed a hot dog and some chicken to tie us over while waiting for the ferry. We returned our car to the rental shop and they ran us over to the ferry in a transport van.

We had about an hour to wait for the ferry to arrive so the boys played a couple video games while Krista and I perused all the material on things to do in Wellington while we are there. The ferry finally boarded and on we went. The Sound was extremely foggy and left us with little or no view as we headed out to sea for the three hour trip. The boys were quite cranky as we didn’t let them sleep in much this morning, but after some card games and such, we managed to get on just fine.

We rolled into Wellington at 5pm and after retrieving our bags, we located our super little red hatchback wagon we would be using for the next 8 days. Our luggage fit in with great ease and we struck out on the highway to Ronnie and Rogers. After a few twists and turns, we arrived at their beautiful home situated high in the hills overlooking Wellington Harbour. The view was absolutely spectacular though it still remained quite foggy.

We sat down for supper with a huge spread of assorted meats and salad. The boys found some toys to play with and we had a great meal with ice cream for dessert. We readied the boys for bed and they were asleep just after 8pm. We had a great visit and headed off to bed for 1030 as we needed our rest for tomorrows grand adventure of touring Wellington to see where Krista grew up over 30 years ago.