We woke up in Wellington this morning to a dark and gloomy sky above us, but we had a fun and exciting day ahead of us. From our hotel we took a taxi to the ferry terminal in Wellington Harbour. There we boarded the Interislander which would transfer us from the North Island to the South Island.

The journey took about 3 hours giving me some time to sort through photos. Because of the overcast sky, leaving Wellington was not all that spectacular, but as we passed through the Cook Straight the sky cleared up a bit so that as we approached the mountainous South Island we could behold its beauty.

We entered the northern sounds of the South Island mid-morning and spent the next 45 minutes gazing up at our surrounding; blue water beneath us with hills and mountains seemingly emergining strait from the ocean. We passed many lighthouses and small fishing cottages and eventually arrived at the port in Picton.

After eating lunch at Picton's local Subway, we boared the second scenic train of our trip, the Coastal Pacific. This train carried us along the South Island's beautiful eastern coast down to Kaikoura (about a 3 hour journey).

Once in Kaikoura, we rented a car (which I believe was the only rental car available in the town) and traveled to a local helicopter company. We were hoping to take a scenic helicopter ride to spot whales beneath us but the company was having no luck finding the whales on this particular day so we decided to spend our time and money elsewhere. We drove to the southern end of the Kaikoura penninsula where we hiked an extremely scenic trail to the opposite side of Kaikoura. The walk was fantastic and the weather was great.

We called the only taxi in town, and they picked us up and transported us back to our car. We then made our way to our hotel and got to bed early as we needed to wake up very early the next morning.

#2015trip