Sunday, March 20, 2011

Return to Lincoln: 10 March

The return to Lincoln was a long day. It involved a 40 minute walk to the ferry station, a 3 hour ferry from Wellington to Picton, a 5 hour bus ride to Christchurch, and then a 30 minute taxi ride to Lincoln.

But oh my goodness, New Zealand is beautiful.

We had a two mile walk through Wellington to the ferry terminal. We got to walk next to the highway and trains! It was a bit scary. But once we made it on the ferry, it was amazing. I've never been on a boat that big before! We had breakfast, a real one! And there were places to lie down and stuff. They had plane seats, which I found humorous.
View out the ferry


Once we made it into Queen Charlotte Sound, it was so beautiful!
Queen Charlotte Sound
The north and south island are only 20km apart at the farthest. Most of the travel time is going through the sounds. The water is so deep blue. It's picturesque. 
The sounds



You could go to the top of the ferry and look out. It was amazing. The wind and sun felt really nice and it was so beautiful it hurt to look at. 


When we made it to Picton, I thought it would be the Gary, Indiana of New Zealand. Not at all. It's a beautiful little town on the ocean, almost like Paihia. 
Picton
We saw a beautiful pied shag on the rocks.
Pied shag

It was so warm we all took off our sweatshirts and stretched in the warm sun. 
Our ferry in the back
After an hour though, our bus left for Christchurch. We drove along the coast. New Zealand is so amazingly beautiful! 

We were driving right next to the water. No people, no boats, no houses. Just water. And lots of seals! And birds! And just on the other side of the road were tons of mountains. Snow covered. New Zealand is so beautiful!
Driving 
We had a short stop in Kaikoura. I went down to the water. The beach was covered in stones, little black stones. It was great. The water wasn't that cold, but cold enough. It was hard to walk though, because the stones hurt. It was just like northern lake Michigan. 
The beach at Kaikoura
It was so amazing!

It was a great end to our wonderful trip in the north island. 










2 comments:

  1. well that was just because classes were postponed because of the earthquake. besides those two weeks, I've gone nowhere at all

    ReplyDelete