South Island Adventures

This last weekend Amanda, Kendall, Camille, Sarah, Wes, and I went to the South Island. We took the ferry to Picton spent the night there, then the next day we took the bus to Nelson. Then we were supposed to be able to spend Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon in Nelson, but because our ferry on Sunday was cancelled we had to catch the first bus out of Nelson on Sunday to get back to Picton so we could catch the earlier ferry back to Wellington.


So with that in mind, we tried to do as much as we could while we were in these two towns. Trouble is, there isnt that much to do in these two towns. When we got to Picton we walked around for awhile then Kendall, Camille, and Amanda went on a wine tour. Meanwhile, Wes, Sarah, and I decided to go to the aquarium. The aquarium is the smallest thing I've ever seen, its just this one room with some moderately large fish tanks. The guy who worked there feed the fish in front of us and explained a few things about them so that was kinda cool. Really the whole reason we went there was to see the blue penguin, who only comes out in the afternoon after the fish have been fed. When the guy walked out of the back room with the penguin, we got really excited cause we thought we were going to be able to pet him or get close to him, but then he put the penguin in a tank to swim around in.

Other than that, we really did nothing else in Picton. We walked around the shops a little bit, explored the beach, and then waited for the girls to get back from there wine tasting.

The next day after we woke up we went to this bakery across the street from out hostel and got some really good sandwiches and doughnuts. Then we walked around aimlessly waiting for out bus, we finally got on the bus at 12:00 and left at 12:15. Then we all got excited again because we were on our way to Nelson, a town that everyone described as "so much fun, and just a really cool place." Well, since we got there after 1PM all the half day tours and adventure stuff had already left and we werent going to be able to do the morning tours because we had to leave really early.

So now we found ourselves again needing something to do. So we walked around town, and followed a map a women at the hotel gave us. We decided to go check out this thing on the map called the Center of New Zealand. It sounded pretty cool, and we all figured it could kill some time. So we get there, and its a football (soccer) field. Now we're all like "wtf" then we wander over to a sign that says Center of New Zealand and its pointing up a hill. Then it translated, Center of New Zealand literally is the center of New Zealand. After we cleared that up we walked up the hill and got some awesome views of the valley and of Nelson.

After we got down we walked around again, found some diner then headed back to the hostel. We attempted to go out to the bars, but none of them were that much fun. It could of been because we got to the first bar around 9:30 and left our last one around 10:45. So maybe were trying to go out a little early, but I think other bars in other cities would have been fun at that time too.

All in all, it was a good trip. At the very least we got out of Wellington and explored a little, and that alone made the trip worth it.