From Rotorua we headed south, there was nothing else specific we wanted to visit on the way, so were just winging it really to see what came up. We were basically making our way to catch the ferry to the South Island.
On the way there are a lot of different view points, scenic areas, and areas of interest signposted. We stopped off at two amazing waterfalls which were so different , one was not high but very wide and fast while the other tumbled down a mountainside.
We spent one night at Napier which is known as the Art Deco town. There was an earthquake in 1931 in the Hawkes Bay area, in which Napier is in, which decimated a lot of the area and is classed as New Zealand's worst natural disaster. The houses which were rebuilt at this time were made in the style popular then, Art Deco. This has resulted in the town being full of many beautiful buildings so it is lovely to wander around.
There are modern sculptures in the town centre, keeping with the Art Deco style.
In our motel there were these emergency procedures, we have never seen advice on earthquakes before. David looked at the doorway to our room and wasn't convinced, I think he would have hidden under the bed.
At these lodgings we had a huge room, 3 sets of bunk beds, one with a double underneath which we slept in, stopped us fighting about who would sleep on top. It was very cold here though and the internet was rubbish. We are still taking bad to having to pay for wifi when we got it free in most other places we have been. The worse thing is, when you pay for it and it doesn't work. We did complain and got our money back.
The next day we drove down to Masterton, this place was very quaint and again was nice to walk around. At our motel the receptionist was struggling to hear, and proceeded to tell us all about her problems with ear wax and how she liked to get it treated, which was lovely! We asked her for a wifi code, which after several minutes on the computer and a lot of sighing and muttering going on from her, we got. When we tried it at our room though no joy. David went off to enquire but gave up and we set off to explore the town, hoping someone new would be on the desk when we got back.
When we did get back there was still no wifi, so David went to ask again but the poor lady was totally confused, looked it up on her computer and said " It says it's not connected, but it's lying , it is." It wasn't. David noticed the router at the back wasn't switched on and mentioned it to her but she was having nothing to do with that. At that, we thought well we are going to get nowhere and just accepted it, then we saw another man go over with his computer and I decided to join him, he actually went behind the desk, switched the router on, noticed she had two others and another gadget not plugged in but even with that it still didn't work.
While we were wandering around this town we went to the local park, they have this very old toilet for men.
In the park there was a geocache which was disguised as a toadstool.
A church in the town
One of the cars parked in the road.
While in this town we had our first fish and chips in months it was really good, the fish was Moki and tasted really nice. There are lots of different types of fish on offer, none of which we had eaten before, some of them I couldn't pronounce.
In Masterton we did manage to get wifi by skulking around outside the library which has free wifi, trying to act casual. To be honest there was a whole bunch of us skulking around, I am sure we could have just gone in.
The next day we travelled the last leg of the journey to Wellington, once again we pulled into an area on the side of the road. There was this little memorial to a soldier who had died during a disturbance at a P.O.W camp, we were surprised by this we didn't think there had been a P.O.W camp in New Zealand.
This is the ferry we sailed on, the journey lasts about three hours but passed quite quickly. Surprise, surprise there was a school trip on it! Wherever I go there are school trips. It was the first time we had driven onto a ferry so big but it was quite straight forward.
There are Scottish links everywhere, one of the lorries that travelled with us.
When we arrived in Picton we headed for a nearby camp site where we were planning to stay at a cabin. The camp itself was in a beautiful spot and the cabin though small was really nice. We really liked it there and hope to stay there the night before we sail back to the North Island.
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