Thursday, January 31 - Crossing the Strait to South Island

      We got to the ferry at 7 am sharp, waited in line for a short while, then drove our van into the belly of the ship.  I had hoped we'd be able to ride on the open deck for the 3 1/2 hour passage.  Luckily, we could, and picked a high deck at the bow.

Driving into the ferry

For the first leg of the crossing you traverse the sheltered Wellington harbor.
The views are great and it's only a little windy.

Approaching the open sea ...

... the wind speed begins to pick up ...

... and it definitely blows your hair around.  Even Dan's hair is feeling the effect.

Now it's reaching gale force, and almost everyone has headed inside, except
for a few crazies

Now there's only one crazy left.  The wind at the starboard bow came up over the
edge of the deck at hurricane speeds.  Kelly held this pose for tens of seconds at
a time,  the air holding her up, her jacket flapping furiously.  And for the hour and a half
we were out in the open straits, she remained there, playing in the blast.  I don't think
 Dan had the stomach to watch her, and he went inside to use the free Wifi,
 but I couldn't stop laughing at how funny it was, and the huge grin was plastered on
 her face the whole way.  I'm sure the ship's crew thought we were insane.
 I'm just glad she wasn't blown away.

Once we were in Marlborough sound on the South Island the wind died back.
We still had an hour of sailing until we reached Picton.  

Gannets escorted us through the sound.  Looking down at one point I saw a small
blue penguin swimming around, but didn't get my camera out soon enough
to photograph him.

Just a couple of old salts enjoying the ride

     It had been an exhilarating trip across the Cook Strait.  We got into our van, and began our exploration of the South Island.   We made a short stop at Nelson Lakes National Park to get some information and maps about a mountain climb I wanted to do the next day.

Looking for eels at Lake Nelson

There's one waiting for a handout.  We didn't oblige.

     We got to a campground where we would base our climb, and watched a helicopter fighting a small fire up in the woods.  They were at it for a couple hours until the fire was doused.  A good thing because we had our tents set up only about half a kilometer from the smoke.

Fire fighters on the ground filled the hanging bucket
from a nearby river ...

... then the pilot flew the short distance up the valley ...

... to dump the water on the blaze.  They 'copter made
dozens of trips while we were there, rather tricky flying with
the dense tree cover.

     We were bothered by small black flies while we cooked and ate our dinner.  Fortunately they took a long time to decide to bite, and it was cool enough to keep covered with clothing.  But I'm afraid it could be a precursor of the famed sand flies of South Island.  We'll see how they compare to the 'Outback Flies'.