First Night on the North Island

Well, tonight is the first night on the North Island. Also tonight we are staying right downtown in the capital city of New Zealand - Wellington. The camp is basically a parking lot in the downtown by the waterfront with buildings with toilets and showers. Out of our window we can see the ferry docking on one side and the tall buildings of downtown on the other side.

It is quite a switch from the peaceful South Island where we spent past 11 days. The population density of South Island is 7 people per square kilometer and the density of the North Island is 30 people per square kilometer just to give you an idea. Or in another words the South Island is about 33% larger but only 23% of the population live there. So I guess that explains why they can get away with one lane bridges on their main highways. So now in to the busier part of New Zealand.

One of many one lane bridges on the South Island

Somewhere north of Queenstown

Sheep crossing

Lake Alexandra - stayed here one night

It sure was a pleasure spending time on New Zealand South Island. We drove 2286 km and in total 36 hours driving it. Our average fuel consumption of the motorhome was 11.2 liters per 100 kilometers which is very impressive for this size of motorhome. We enjoyed the slow pace of life there and the peaceful camps we stayed at.

The last couple of nights we stayed at Marahau, just south of the Abel Tasman National Park. It was the first time we stayed in one camp for two night in a row - that was a nice break, not driving for a whole day. It was a a beautiful place. We went for a hike on the Abel Tasman National Park trail. We took a water taxi to the Anchorage - a nice bay along the trail and then hiked back to camp. We walked for 12.8 km. We visited several beautiful beaches and took a swim in the Tasman Sea. The temperature was 23 degrees and the water was about the temperature of our lakes in the summer. The beaches were golden sand that are created by the salt water braking up the granite shore. Apparently the granite contains iron and the salt water corrodes it which cause the granite to fall apart creating these awesome beaches. In the evening we finally got use the BBQ we got with the camper van and made some New Zealand steaks - the turned out well.

Proof that I was swimming in the Tasman Sea

The beaches were wonderful

Cormorant and some other bird

One of the interesting experiences was taking the water taxi. I purchased the tickets for the taxi and was told to go over to the next door building to wait for the pick up. In a few minutes a big Ford tractor turned the corner pulling a trailer with a boat on it and passengers sitting in the boat. He pulled in the parking spot and dropped a ramp up to the boat and we were instructed to get on board. There were already eight passengers on board. Then the skipper got on the tractor and drove down the road and down the boat ramp and it to he middle of the bay. On the way we met another tractor with a boat on a trailer that pulled up right next to us and a few passengers hopped on to our boat. Then the skipper came on board of the boat and another guy drove our tractor even further until the boat started to float, then we took off. The beach there is so long that they need to use this way to get the boats in the water - it works well.

So far the north of the South Island is my favorite part of New Zealand the scenery, the beaches and the climate but we had to push on and make our way to the North Island. The ferry crossing was good, we were on the largest ferry that crosses the Cook Straight. It can take up to 600 cars and 1600 passengers. There are two ferry companies that run between the two islands, Bluebridge and Interislander. We went on the latter and the ship was called Kaitaki. The ship could use a bit of updating but overall was nice. The first hour and a bit we spent sailing through the Queen Charlotte sound, then almost two hours across she Cook Strait and the last part was sailing into the Wellington Harbour. In total the crossing took three hours and twenty minutes. I was interesting to see that they use big chains to tie down the semis and the trucks, apparently the crossings can get very rough. We had great weather and very smooth sailing.

Tonight we went for a walk in the downtown of Wellington and got some groceries, made a really nice stir fry and then went for another walk to take some pictures of Wellington at night, we will see how it turns out. We have had some discussions here about whether Wellington is a big city or not, Phillip is claiming that it is not a big city while we feel that at 395 600 people it is a big city. Well, we can all have our opinion I guess, it's just that some people are more opinionated than others.

We will be staying here for two nights. Tomorrow we will explore the highlights of the city and I will try to update the information here.

I will also add more pictures here once I go through them s check back later. Good night.