New Zealand: Christchurch to Wellington

We woke up extra early on Wednesday morning.  By 7:30 am we were already packed up and heading out of Christchurch.  We had a 4 1/2 hour drive to Picton to catch a ferry to the North Island.  What made it so difficult was that the boarding call to get on the ferry was 1:00 pm.  That doesn't leave a lot of extra room for stops.

We drove from Christchurch to Picton, where the red pin is, and then took the ferry to Wellington.

Photos from the road; we couldn't take the time to stop.

Cool, rustic tunnels.  Or, scary tunnels.  Depends on how claustrophobic you are.

We needed a pit stop about 2 1/2 hours out of Christchurch.  We saw signs that the next town was Kaikoura.  I instantly fell in love with this lovely town.  I am a person that is strongly guided by my intuition.  As soon as we drove into town, everything felt "right".  It had that beachy, bohemian feel that I love.  Yet, it did not feel run down like some beach towns do, but rather like everything was well kept up and maintained.  The water was gorgeous.  The beach was really nice, even though it was a darker, coarse sand texture and not a fine, white sand like Sydney beaches.  That is fine with me.  I don't always need to go lay out on the beach; I would be perfectly content to sit somewhere comfortable with a gorgeous view and a great book.  If I wasn't staring at the ocean, then I could look at the spectacular mountains surrounding the area.  I was genuinely sad because our stop here was so quick.  Maybe I had such a strong feeling because I was exhausted from all the driving and the beach looked so enticing on our first truly sunny day of the trip.  But, the group could have left me in that little town and I wouldn't have complained one bit.

The beach near Kaikoura.  Not too shabby.

Yep.  I could stay here awhile.

We rolled into Picton at 12:30, so plenty of time before the 1:00 pm boarding call for the ferry leaving at 2:00 pm.  We had to wait until around 1:30 to board and then we had free reign to roam the ferry.  It was a pretty large boat with about 10 levels, but passengers could only use about half of them.  We ate a late lunch once we boarded the boat and then Carter and Aubrey had fun exploring all the boat's nooks and crannies.  As expected, their favorite location was the kids' playground.  

From Picton, the ferry followed the dotted line to Wellington.

Chillin' on the ferry

Views as we left the South Island

There was even a magic show for the kids on the ferry!

The first part of the trip was smooth as the boat was navigating out of the sound.  However, the ferry got pretty rocky when it was on the open seas between the two islands.  My motion sickness was making me feel pretty rough, so I just zoned out, listened to my audiobook, and tried to watch the outside scenery for that portion of the trip.  Aubrey did really, really well.  She had a very short period that she felt sick, but it did not last very long and then she was completely fine.  We were all good once the boat got back into sheltered waters. 

Hello, North Island!

Our first glimpses of Wellington

On a side note, I was very anxious about Aubrey and her motion sickness before  starting this New Zealand trip.  She is extremely sensitive to small, curvy roads and it has been an issue with a lot of our other travels around Australia.  I knew New Zealand was going to be full of small, curvy roads.  Phenergan does help her and it is over the counter in Australia, but it makes her really drowsy and I did not want to medicate her with it for 9 days in a row.  

Right before we left, I purchased Aubrey a set of motion sickness wrist bands.  I thought they were kind of pricey for basically two elastic bands with little plastic balls in the middle.  The theory is that the plastic balls are placed in a specific position on her wrist to put pressure on the P6 acupuncture site.  This acupuncture site is supposed to help control nausea and vomiting.  I almost didn't do it because of the price and there is no good evidence based proof that they work.  On a whim, I went ahead and got them because I thought if they actually worked, they would be worth their weight in gold.  

Aubrey had two very minor bouts with motion sickness on the entire 9 day trip and she never threw up.  I gave her a small amount of medicine on the first couple days and before we took the ferry, but that was it.  Considering how rocky the ferry got, I don't think the Phenergan alone would have stopped her from being ill.  It was a miracle.  And, you can't claim it was a placebo effect because Aubrey is too young for that to be a factor.  The bracelets may not work for everyone, but I believe that they helped Aubrey on this trip.  And, yes, they were worth their weight in gold to us. 

The ferry was supposed to take about 3 1/2 hours, but it took a little longer thanks to another boat having technical difficulties and blocking the port in Wellington.  We were all starving by the time we got to Wellington since the food options on the boat were not that great.  We went down to the wharf area to eat dinner at a restaurant before we even checked into the hotel.  It was 7:00 pm by this time and there was a wait to get a seat at most restaurants.  We walked around a bit and ended up at Wagamama.  We had eaten at the chain Japanese restaurant once in Melbourne and really enjoyed it.  We had a great experience again and everyone in our party loved their meal.

The wharf area in Wellington

Walking along the wharf.  The buildings on the right were full of restaurants.

Some creative restrooms

We were ready to go check into the hotel after dinner.  The hotel was about a 15 minute walk from the wharf and the drive wasn't much shorter thanks to the small streets in the city center of Wellington.  Carter and I decided to burn some energy and walk to the hotel while everyone else drove.  Carter was pretty excited that we actually beat them to the hotel.  (We may have cheated and ran a little bit.)  We settled in for the night and looked forward to spending the entire next day in Wellington.  Wellington looked like a very small, walkable city.  That made me very happy because I did not even want to LOOK at that darn minivan for the next 36 hours.