South Island

We are currently now in the south island of NZ. After being delayed a day and going through a rough ferry ride between islands we have finally made it. There were 14 meter swells the day we couldn't sail between islands. The day we did finally sail the swells were about 5 meters and man oh man those were not fun. The feeling brought me back to my days on Semester at Sea. I did alright even though the feeling wasn't terribly enjoyable. However, Ben was very sick for almost the entire ride. On top of that we were on the ship an extra 2.5 hours because of delays. Poor Ben....he hasn't the best of motion sickness luck on this trip. Now we are here though. We have 5.5 weeks in the south island. We stayed a short one night in Picton and then moved on to Nelson, where we have been for 4 nights. Nelson is a small little beach town. We have enjoyed this art town. We spent one day at the beach even though we never got in the water. Another day we spent riding bikes through a rather long, windy, rocky but very fun bike trail. We have also hiked to the Center of NZ. Here in Picton on top of a mountain is the center of NZ. Easy hike! We planned to spend more time in the north part of the south island but due to booked hostels and bus routes we were not able to. Tomorrow we will be off to Kaikoura which is southeast of Nelson but still along the coast.
~ The Traveling Duo

 Ferry ride between the two islands

cliffs along the way

ferry ride

center of new zealand