Day 9 - Wellington to Abel Tasman

We knew on Friday that the early Sunday morning ferry from Wellington to Picton was cancelled, so we enjoyed our quiet morning in Wellington by touring the museum near our hotel: Te Papa. They must have used some of the special effects magicians at Weta to produce the incredible displays in the museum, because they were amazing. Highly recommended and totally free!

From there, we gathered our stuff and took the short shuttle ride to the Bluebridge ferry. The ferry was similar to a BC Ferry, just a bit longer (3.5hrs) and a bit bigger (multiple observation decks). They played two movies in the "movie theatres": Zoolander 2 and Jungle Book. I say put movie theatres in quotes because they are in a glass room (lots of ambient light) with lots of loud people (someone behind me was talking on the phone!) and the only sound was from the 2-watt speakers built-into the 55-inch screens. Needless to say, this didn't capture our attention. Zoolander was pretty lame (especially since we couldn't really hear it) so we flaked out for 20 minutes or so.

When we came to, we wandered up on the top deck and had a great view as we transitioned from North Island to South Island. Same as BC Ferries, only with bluer water.

Once we arrived at Picton, we hopped onto our new bus (very much like our old bus), but with a few passenger changes. Thomas and Benedict (from Germany), Patrick and Wendy (from Hong Kong), and Tina (from Oregon) had left us, and Holly (from Toronto!) joined us.

We stopped for groceries (dinner and next day's lunch) and drove into the night. We arrived at The Barn in darkness. A few of us shared a drink, but we all headed to bed around 11PM or midnight (bus travel is surprisingly tiring). Good thing too ... for what was about to happen next.