Day 9.

We left Wellington on the 1pm ferry to Picton (crossing the Cook Strait to the South Island). It took about 3hrs but we took in some really nice views. As we along the side of the ferry toward the observation deck, I noticed something pop out of the water and on closer inspection it was a Whale! Neither of us had ever seen one before and we were really lucky as all the other passengers were at the front of the boat so they probably missed it! It was pretty close to us.

There wasn’t much to do in Picton so we caught a bus to Nelson (about 2.5 hrs) which is a bigger town further to the west of the north coast (of the south island). From here we plan to go anti clockwise all the way around the south island.

Once we had settled in the hostel we went for a few drinks in town with a bloke from our room. He had got to NZ traveling mostly overland from London to Hong Kong and had traveled across the Middle East, staying in Lebanon and Iran - sicko! Went to a really nice pool bar and one doing a karaoke night. The locals seemed to love it and really went for it when they sung, we just watched of course.

Foot update - Its almost back to normal apart from a few scars and cuts and the tiniest bit of swelling. Did have 3 pints last night which was naughty but I have vowed them to be the last until I finish the prescription in 3 days.

Day 10.

This was perhaps our most unsuccessful day of the trip so far. Everything we tried ended up going wrong. Duncan fancied going sailing, but once we got to the harbour all boats were booked for the days we were there.

There wasn’t much to do in Nelson so we turned our attention to hiring a car. No companies would allow us to drop the car off further south so another dead end. As buses South to Fox Glacier took 9 hours and cost $90, we only really wanted to do this as a last resort.

There were 2 other ‘flair effort’ possibilities - Get a lift to Christchurch (off our planned route on the east coast) from someone in the hostels for $20 or Hitch-hike towards Fox as planned…………We decided to try this hitch-hiking lark for the 1st time ever the following day.

To pass the time we popped into the main bar (which is a flash pool bar) and managed to enter the speed pool tournament. The aim was to finish a frame before your opponent in a knock out format. I lost to Duncan in the 1st round!!!! To be honest I was gutted as I fancied my chances. Duncs hit top form after this and managed to scrape into the semi finals, where he lost to the local pool veteran. Clearly this format favours the less skilled players as I beat Duncan in 2 ‘normal’ frames after the tourney where I could use my skillful positional and safety play J .

Day 11.

Up early to catch a bus to the main road and commence the hitching experience. Within 20mins we had our first lift, an old boy on his way to play golf dropped us 20miles down the road in the middle of nowhere.

Our 2nd lift came from a Rasta fisherman on his way to see his girlfriend in Greymouth, 3 ½ hours drive in our direction…..result! He was pretty cool and had good stories about being at sea and traveling in Brazil. We thought our 1st attempt had been a real success as we were ½ way to Fox Glacier by 4pm and were preparing to look for a hostel…….but it got even better…

Our 3rd lift came just as we were going to call it a day in Greymouth. A guy shouted over to us in the car park that he was going to Fox, and he even worked in a hostel - 3 ½ hours drive later we were dropped off right outside our accommodation. Sweet as - as everyone says constantly here in NZ. Our first day of hitching and we covered well over 400/500km. Nobody in the hostel could believe it!

The hostel has one of those 40inch back projection Sony cinema TVs and fold down seats like a real cinema. Hasn’t been a film we want to see on yet but it should be good if we get round to it.