Picton And Our Ferry Trip To The North Island!

Friday morning we woke up early to pack our things for the ferry. We were getting rid of Fran that day, so we really had to go through our food and other items to see what we were keeping and what we were throwing. It was really nice having our car for extra storage for the two weeks, so we had to figure out how to pack everything back up into our suit cases. We ate breakfast at Burger King in order to get WiFi to figure out where we were going, and then we headed on our way for our last mini road trip with Fran to Picton. Picton was only about half hour away from Blenheim, so it wasn't too bad of a drive.

When we got to Picton, we had about 3 hours before we had to check in to the ferry, so we decided to do some shopping. This town was much smaller than some of the towns we had been in while in the South Island. There was basically only one street with shops on it, kind of like how some of the cities are in the North Island.

It's pretty funny because the way parking works in these cities is that different spots along the streets allow you to be parked there for different amounts of time. If we were in one that was for a half hour, what you do is when you come back to your car you look to see if it has been chalked by the police. If it has, that means you have half hour to move it. If your car hasn't been chalked yet, you are still good. Basically the chalk says when they started counting the half hour. Well, we didn't know this when we were down in Dunedin. We had been parked somewhere overnight (we weren't sure if it was legit or not), but we just decided to do it since we were leaving early the next morning. I was about to eat breakfast when Shaina comes running in from outside saying "guys, I just saw a police man come up and chalk our car! I don't think we were supposed to be there. We have to go!" So we quickly picked up the rest of our things, jumped in the car, and drove off. That is definitely the fastest we had ever gotten out of somewhere. We didn't know what that meant at the time, so we thought maybe they were marking the car tire to get towed. We parked down the street and looked at our tire and the chalk was gone (which is the point of the chalk) so we felt a little better. When we got to Queenstown, we realized what it meant and then just laughed at ourselves. But anyways, by the time we got to Picton, we were pros at moving our car when we were chalked, so we just kept moving our car until we were done shopping. 

We walked down to the water which had a really pretty bay with a nice park. There were a lot of boats docked in the bay, and you can see one of the ferrys in the distance a little to the left. Picton is the only city you can leave from to take the ferry back, so I think this is what helps keep this small town going. We had a little snack before going to figure out the ferry situation and return our car.

The ferry company that we went with was Bluebridge. It worked out great because our car rental service allowed us to just give the ferry people our car key so we didn't have to worry about transporting our luggage. It was also super helpful because this place had free WiFi in all of their buildings and even on their ferry! I didn't really use it on the ferry, but it is still always nice when you can find somewhere with free WiFi.

We checked our luggage so we didn't have to deal with it and then picked up our boarding passes. If we had wanted to take our car we could have...the ferry was HUGE with a carpark and everything. It was more expensive to bring our car and we had decided we were taking a bus back to Thames from the bottom of the North Island, so we didn't need our car. Once we got onto our ferry we choose a spot outside to sit while we set off.

I was actually surprised by the number of people who decided to sit inside. Maybe it's because they take the ferry a lot so it really isn't anything special to them. It wasn't super cold or anything, but it was kind of windy, so maybe people didn't like that. The view was really pretty though from up on top. I kept looking behind the boat and along side of the boat in hopes to see dolphins...no luck though.

Like I said, it was pretty windy outside, so it was really hard to take a decent picture without my hair blowing in my face. The ride started off in a little channel with mountains on one side and hills on the other, and then eventually we could see some land to one side and just open ocean to the other. It was cool.

The total ride was about 4 hours in length. We got some lunch down below and ate it outside and then we all kind of just did our own thing. I went to look around the outside of the boat at the different scenery and to look for dolphins while Shaina read her book and Courtney slept. It was cool going around and exploring the ship because I have never been on a cruise or anything so I've never been on a boat that big. I know that this ferry is not even close to what a cruise ship is like, but there were still different sitting rooms and compartments for people to sleep and different bars and cafes. I have been on a ferry before, but the ride was only like a half hour, so it was a much smaller boat. It was kind of like a mini cruise experience I suppose. 

Eventually the sun started setting which was really cool because it made for some really pretty views. As we were heading into Wellington, you could start to see the city buildings and the city lights turning on. Once the sun started setting, it was getting really cold, so I eventually went to go sit inside when I had already seen the city of Wellington from a distance. I was probably inside for about 15 minutes before our boat was docked and we were ready to get off of it. 

We got off the ferry and went to get our luggage. We didn't have a car anymore, but luckily our hostel was right across the street from where our ferry dropped us off. We headed over there and checked in. We didn't exactly know what we wanted to do in Wellington, but it was the largest city we had been in so far so we were excited! 

It was weird to be back on the North Island again, but we knew our trip wasn't over quite yet. We still had the rest of the night and the next day to explore Wellington before taking our night bus back, so we were ready to make the most of our last couple days!