Happy first drove us to the Stray lot to quickly check the last bus for my camera: no luck. Then he drove us to Christchurch Airport to pick up our two new team members. This is when we noticed there was no modem on the bus: 8+ hours without Internet! Ouch.
From there, it was approximately 472 km to Picton because of closures on Highway 1 ... but Happy still found time for us to do a wine tasting at Whitehaven Winery. I'm afraid I don't have many other details of today's journey because I slept through most of it (the advantage of staying up late to blog).
There was some sort of mixup with the flight, because Happy left us at Picton Airport with no plane/pilot in sight. Eventually a van came, picked us up, and drove us to the next airport: Blenheim. Apparently this was the result of the strong winds. We all got on a Cessna 208, with one non-Stray passenger ... and a pubescent pilot flew us across to Wellington Airport, with only a few bumps along the way.
We were met at the departures (?!) area by Seagull and his apprentice Mike ... in a Weta tour bus (?!). (It made better sense when we got to the Nomad Hostel and they swapped busses back with our Weta tour guide from two weeks ago.)
Once checked into the hostel, we all had a brief walk up Cuba Street to get cash from the cash machine and walk past the Saturday-night food stalls. We then walked back to Blend for more ribs/burgers/salad and drinks ... just no shooters or dancing this time.
I have never heard the wind like we heard it that night ... apparently it was hitting 110-130 kmh!
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