Woke up quite early and managed to have a quick shower (thought this would be a bit of a mission as there was only one bathroom between quite a few rooms) and throw my things together so as to be able to check out and go for a quick walk.
I headed just a little way down the road and went up to the beach where I had another look at the beautiful views of the mountains meeting the sea, in the morning light it looked a bit different as the sunshine bounced off the snow at a different angle to yesterday afternoon. Needing a hit of caffeine, I grabbed a coffee from the only place that was open and went back to the hostel where I sat in the lounge and had a quick chill out, chatting to a couple of people from the bus, before it came to collect us at 9.30am.
The bus route took us along the coast and this time, whilst looking out to sea, I saw several seals splashing about and languishing on rocks. Not far out of Kaikoura, Metro stopped at a little place on the shoreline where we walked up a path into a nature reserve. We followed the path along a stream which fed into the sea, climbing up a load of steps, it lead to a waterfall and there we saw lots and lots of little baby seals (I am not sure what a baby seal is called – is it a calf, seal-let or a seal-ling?!). Some of them were just having a snooze on the bank, others were swimming around in the water, twisting and turning, playing together. Some of them seemed to pose for our cameras, they certainly were not shy! It was very cute indeed!
Back on the bus, we continued our journey, through lots of hills and mountains. Yes, it was very beautiful, but it was a bit samey – it was as if we were driving in a time warp or something, just going on and on in a constant loop, the scenery just didn’t change! Hmmm. This gives me a sense of inner turmoil – on the one hand, I should be wowed and amazed by the beauty before me and thus should appreciate it for the natural treasure it is, but on the other, it is rather repetitive and in some ways that is slightly dull as the scenery then kind of blurs into one and that makes me stop paying attention to it, when I know I should be taking it all in. What a trauma!
Anyway, after a lot more scenery and a stop at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere which had a museum attached to it - well it would be more accurate to describe it as a shed with a sign saying ‘Museum’ on it (it was closed so I have no idea what it would have been about!) - we eventually arrived at Picton, where some people, including Kerry, got off the bus. The rest of us then carried on to the ferry terminal.
We had to wait for ages at the terminal, so I sat in the sun outside with Anna (an American girl I had been chatting to on the bus) until at last the transfer bus arrived to take us to the ferry itself and we got on as foot passengers. Anna and I sat on the top deck in the sun, although the sea breeze added a definite chill-factor.
Once the ferry was loaded with cars etc, which took forever, we left the port on our way to the north island. The crossing brought about a similar trauma to the one previously discussed – beautiful views, but a bit too much of it. The issue I think is that I am used to crossing from one point to the other, from the closest point – you don’t go along parallel to the coastline of Dover for a couple of hours before crossing to Calais, whereas here the port was tucked in a bit, so it seemed that we were land locked for a rather long time before we hit the open sea. Anna and I discussed this and decided that at no point during the crossing had we not been able to see land very clearly. It was pretty going past the hills, though, just felt like it took forever!
We arrived in Wellington and after I said farewell to Anna, the rest of us were taken to our hostel – Nomads. I was very worried about this place, as it is about as far as it is possible to get from being like a YHA , Nomads and Base hostels are your typical hostel full of drunk 12 year olds (ok, 18/19 year olds who act like they’re 12), but I figured that it was only for one night and it couldn’t be that bad. When I checked in, it scored some immediate Brownie points as there was a lift – hurrah indeed, as I hate dragging my bag up several flights of stairs. It then scored some more Brownie points as we were given a voucher for dinner and a free drink. Nice! The dorm itself was not great – it looked like a cyclone had hit; stuff everywhere! Still – only one night.
I got changed and then met three of the others from the bus in the reception and we went to the bar next door for our dinner and drink. The food turned out to be macaroni cheese; rather school-dinner-esque but it could have been worse. I got two pints (hurrah for vouchers!) and we were then told that they were closing at 7pm for a private function, meaning I had to drink these pints rather swiftly as it was 6.45! When we left, the other three went off somewhere, so I said farewell to them as they wouldn’t be on the bus with me tomorrow, then I headed off into the city to meet JJ! She had arrived in Welly the same day, with her friend Karen.
We had arranged to meet in ‘Kitty O’Shea’s’, one of many Irish pubs in Welly. I got there at about 8.15pm and when they arrived, it was so exciting, it felt like I hadn’t seen JJ in years and we had a lot to catch up about, so the three of us entertained each other with tales of our travels over a few more drinks. I told JJ that I had better make it an early one, seeing as my bus was leaving at 6.45am. This plan failed to materialise! Our night then took a turn into fairytale land, and I felt like ‘Goldilocks’ – first we moved on to ‘Molly Malones’s’, another Irish pub, where we had another drink but felt the atmosphere was a bit odd – a live band playing (badly) and far too many scary looking old people (plus we must have brought the average age down by about 20 years!) – ‘too old’. From there we went to a student bar which was funny as it was the total opposite and this time we felt incredibly old in there, so we left after a couple of drinks and just as a band of seemingly pre-pubescent youths started playing a cover of a song which was released when they were not even alive – ‘too young’! Next we came to another Irish pub called something else (you can’t help but trip over Irish pubs here!) which was lots of fun because it was ‘just right’ – we seemed to hit the average age bracket and there was a pretty decent band playing so JJ and I had a bop and laughed so hard my sides hurt (Karen must have thought I was a bit of a nutter!). Lastly, we went to a bar called ‘Southern Cross’ which was a little bit less casual than the Irish pub and while we chatted, we watched some people playing giant Jenga.
Then it was time to head back to the hostel, I said a sad farewell to JJ and headed off to my room. It was surprising because I was the last one back, everyone was asleep – I thought this was supposed to be a party hostel! Turns out I out-partied all the young’uns! LOL!
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