Changing of the islands, NZ north to south

Te Araroa trail, skipping the swimming section!

I'm now in Picton (day 88) and will stay again tonight. Sandra and I caught the 6pm ferry arrived in Picton at 9pm. It was fun to approach the South Island with a setting sun and then to disappear into a long darkening inlet and into full night by the time we arrived.

dbBrad on the Te Araroa trail, freestyle!

The boat was big and we were the first ones on somehow even though we may have been the last ones to the terminal. Such, we had the best seats in the house and our bags were on top and were the first ones out of the terminal on the south island.

dbBrad and Sandra cross from the north island to the south island, NZ

And there to greet us were many small cute little vans driven by proprietors of local hostels. We found one called Atlantis run by an amazingly energetic woman originally from upstate New York. Her hostel is in a large building that used to be a city building, a dive shop and then a museum. Now it is a hostel. A very interesting building, to say the least.

View from picton of the ferry looking out towards Queen Charlotte sound.

Today (day 89) is very rainy so we will leave instead tomorrow morning on an 8am boat to Ships Cove. The track is 77km and we are allowing 4 days to leisurely complete the journey.