Friday 21^st. March.

Up before light and wait in the ferry queue for an hour before loading.

Then watch others loading and the departure from the open top deck.

Well buttoned up in Fleece and Windproof, I stay and watch our progress weaving down Queen Charlotte Sound to the open sea; this alone takes one of the four hours of the sailing to Wellington on the North Island, and is quite magical, as it appears that we are gliding slowly through similar landscapes that we have been charging through in the car, but these valley flats are water, and we are leaving a long wake behind.

 

 

We make a few zig-zags as to go straight ahead would either leave us land locked or take us a very long way round, such is the convoluted layout of the Marlborough Sounds as this whole north coast of South Island is known.

Even when we reach the open sea of the Cook Straight I stay up top in the strong cold wind to watch the no longer smooth sea for all but one hour of the 4 hour crossing.

 

North Island has always been visible but I come back on deck when the view is close enough to be interesting, and watch our approach to Wellington, and am struck by the number of SkyScrapers, in contrast with Christchurch which has been nearly levelled.

 

After disembarkation I try to find my way to Te Papa, The Museum of New Zealand, by a SatNav that tells me to get back on the ferry, so I make my own way by instinct, trial and fortunately not too much error. Parking is almost impossible and when I find a space, I have too few coins to feed the meter. I try my credit card in the meter, but it won’t accept, so I drive to a supermarket across the road and change a note, drive a couple of blocks round the one way system and find a 2 hour parking slot.

Te Papa is a modern 5 storey building, and tells the story by means of exhibits and audio visual presentations – many interactive for the Kids – of New Zealand from its geological creation millions of years ago, through colonisation by plants and birds, then Maori followed by Europeans, to the present day. It is all very impressive, but 2 hours is just not enough to take it all in: this is a place you need to visit little and often to take it all in properly, which, if you were local, you could do as entry I free.

I am feeling tired today, so I decide to head north with no plan as such, but with Tongariro Crossing in mind, I set SatNav to there, and realise that I could drive there by dark, or that if I had missed out Te Papa I could have been there in good time. It is not a place to go without booking accommodation in advance, so when I stop for petrol I get out my phone, only to find it dead, oh well it must have run down, so I decide I will just keep driving and find a motel somewhere to rest for the night, recharge the phone, and asses the week ahead. The driving is much busier than I have come across before. It is more like the A1; lots of traffic coming to a standstill frequently where 2 lanes come down to 1, and the little seaside towns remind me of those on the Lincolnshire coast, and Levin, Skegness in particular.

It is all getting too much, so I dive into the next dive I come across, a cheap motel in one of these little seaside towns – village more like – rather run down but what should one expect at half the price of my usual: the sheets are clean though.

Here I find that the phone won’t charge: I am sure that it is as dead as a Dodo. Is my luck finally running out here on North Island: Worrying.

No internet at this place, but not a surprise at this price, so reassess my plans and write up the blog in draft, as usual, on the computer. When I next get internet access you are going to get a few days all at once: I was so pleased to be able to use the phone as a mobile router and I have still got credit in NZ Telecom that I cannot now use unless I go and buy a new phone, which I don’t think is necessary in the time left to me: I can cope, and if the computer packs up you will receive the last posts from UK when I return.

I have decided that going to Tongariro at the weekend would be a mistake, so I think I will go to Taranaki for the weekend and use my time there to organise accommodation in advance.

 

Am posting this the next morning having found that the phone will work when plugged into the computer, so can use it to act as a mobile router: but will it charge and work when standing alone.

 

See the Next Episode?

 

 

S