Welli, The Ferry, and Picton.

Alright Folks it's been two days since I last posted because I spent last night couch surfing at a house in Welli. Welli (Wellington) was all filled up for a weekend on rugby tournament called "the Sevens". The main theme seems to be dress up in a crazy costume, get roaring drunk, and go watch a rugby match. After we dropped off our car at Ace we headed to the train station and what we saw was like Halloween mixed with VEISHEA (a large ISU festival for all you non-cyclones). We saw transvestite "Dora The Explorer"s and crayons, fruit, the entire Flinstones cast, a bunch of army commandos, etc. SO MANY DRUNK PEOPLE.

The entire station reeked of booze

Anyway, we got on the train and took it out to a suburb of wellington called Tawa where we stayed at a house. The owners, The Digbys, are Rob and Shannon the parents and their two young kids, Olivia (3) and Isaac (1). There were also 5 Brits sleeping in a tent in the back yard, two Californians sleeping in the living room, two Frenchmen sleeping in the basement and myself and my friend in the guest bedroom. Talk about a full house. Anyway it was good fun and they were very welcoming and it was a great place to stay.

Hoofin' it

Dani and I woke up at 5:30 so we could walk 15 minutes to the train stop to catch a 6:46 train into Welli to be at the port by 7:00. We made it and took our seats for the 3 1/2 hour ferry ride across the Cook Straight to Picton.

Entering the fjord to Picton

Once we arrived in Picton we took a bus to our hostel then walked into town and rented some bikes to go mountain biking in the bluffs surrounding the fjord. We spent two hours riding around and then came back in and ate dinner at an Irish pub recommended to us by some locals.

Look how safe we're being, Mom!

The Interislander ferry leaving Picton

Tomorrow we are getting up early and walking into town to go kayaking on the fjord and then we will be catching a bus to Christchurch and spending the night before catching another bus the next morning for Dunedin. More updates to come soon, hopefully a virtual tour of my apartment and Dunedin and all that good stuff.