NZ2006 To Wellington 18May06

18May06 Thursday

Today we had the crossing from the South Island to the North Island.  We were booked on the 1:15PM ferry and lined up about 12:30PM at the dock.  It was only about a 10 minute trip from town so it gave everyone a little time to look around Picton.  It’s a nice little port town and home of a lot of sailboats docked there.  As Joan and I were parked in the dock area a float plane came over our heads low and landed in the bay.  The ferry pulled out about on time and we were off to the North Island.  The sun was out with a blue sky and the seats on the sun deck were full.  Joan and I spent a little time out in the sun watching the wake from ship behind us and then went down to the café area where the team had congregated at the front windows.  We played cards, read and conversed for the 3 ½ hour trip.

 

We arrived about 5PM in the Wellington harbor and most of us immediately headed off to the Te Papa museum in Wellington.  The museum tells the history of the New Zealand peoples and takes a lot of time to see it all.  The museum is well done and is a beautiful piece of architecture.  The museum is built on 150 pilings and each one has an impressive rubber shock absorber between the building steel and the piling.  This is to isolate the building from earthquakes.  They record about 1500 earthquakes a year in New Zealand.  We spent about 3 hours there and then went to find the campground in Lower Hutt.

 

The campground had recently closed the end of street nearest the campground entrance and this caused a lot of confusion for us and others.  Eventually we all got in and parked for the night.