Another day another fab train journey! (I'm starting to wonder if in a previous life I wasn't a train spotter....) today's left Christchurch at 7am which meant a pick up (free admittedly) at 6.10am! so my alarm went off at 5 and i stumbled downstairs to the showers (I really should have bought more suitable pjs before travelling - those who've seen them will understand why I shouldn't be wandering round in public in them..... ooops!) having woken up (& noticed s huge purple bruise on my knee) i managed to make the shuttle and the train - another amazing journey this time up the coastline to picton - although at 6 hours even I felt trained out by the end!

the genius of trains here is you can check your bags in so and they let me check them through to Wellington (even though i'd paid someone else to travel on the ferry) so from Christchurch all the way to Wellington I only had my hand luggage - see i can get away with not travelling light (although I still hold Richardson solely responsible for the number of shoes, accessories, scarfs, jackets, dresses etc etc etc that are filling my bags! (not plural bags!!!)

the ferry from Picton to Wellington seems to take an age (3 hours) especially as there was very little to actually do aboard, although it was funny to see it is the old pride of cherbourg (painted out) but Portsmouth is still proudly painted on the side! then a shuttle to the YHA - so my curry ordered I can update you all and get ready for more museums and galleries over the next 2 days (I intend to spend almost all of tomorrow at Te Papa :-)

Sadly though (this may only be sad to me and mum!) none of the museums seem to sell postcards of the collections! you can generally get the scenes of NZ tourist postcards etc but none of the collections and if they do have some then they're notecards with envelopes?!?! so distinct lack of pictures of collections especially as you can't photograph any of them - rubbish!