• Ferryy across islands
• Wellington Botanical Gardens

As we were about to check out, one of the hotel staff came over and returned our camera which had been found for us and returned to the hotel. While the physical damage to the camera isminimal, it's full of water and mud - And is therefore stuffed. Fortunately we now have the memory card back - and our insurance covers damage & I had individually insured it, so we shouls be able to claim most of the money back through the insurance to replace it.

Once checked out, drove to Picton to catch the ferry to Wellington (about 1.5hr drive). Decided to take the scenic drive, significantly shorter in distance but much slower (although only takes about 4 minutes longer according to the tom tom to take the scenic route). This drive is spectacular - amazingly windy, but the views are well worth it - with views overlooking the bays and islands - it's not all that different from Milford sound, just the mountains are not quite as high as those in Milford sound - the water is once again a vibrant blue.

Arrived at the ferry car check in (after firstly going to the incorrect ferry terminal). After about a 4 minute wait in the cue of hundreds of cars, we drove into the ship. The view from the boat as we head out of the south island is once again spectacular (unfortunately unable to photograph again with the camera not working).

Leaving the boat… we got a bit lost finding our car - not all that well sign posted - also everyone goes at once, as we were parked almost at the front but had to wait for all those in-front of us to go down before we could, so we endedup holding some people us as we simply could not get to our car…

Once in Wellington, we quickly found the hotel - then headed into town and went to the botanical gardens. We had planned on catching the cable car - however the car park for it is at the top in the botanical gardens… so there was really no practical point in catching it. Went for a walk through the gardens - reasonably average, although there are a few sections here you descend into think almost rain forest which were good, but the rest was basically just grass and some big trees.

Drove around town a bit to do some shopping - quite a lot of tunnels (went through 2). Had dinner at the hotel restaurant which took forever, apparently they were busy - even though there were only 4 other people in the restaurant…