Jenny's Jabberings: New Zealand Day 9, (Aug. 10) Picton, Wellington, Wanganui

We were off to catch the ferry to Wellington. I had a weird mental block with the whole ferry thing. Every time I would look at the chart I would say "ok, so we're going Wellington to Picton right?" and Treg would patiently say "no, Jenny Picton to Wellington" so you would think that he would clue in that perhaps I should not be in charge of the ferry schedule. I suggested we get tickets online ahead of time but he assured me it wouldn't be that crowded (ferry mistake #1) then I looked at the schedule and told him the departure time (ferry mistake #2). We had all stopped outside of the harbor to go to the bathroom and were taking our sweet time when I decide to look at the schedule again. CRAP!! I told him the wrong time. We all scramble into the car and dash to the harbor only to find out that it is completely booked. They were nice enough to put us on standby and let us get into the line. Now missing the ferry is a big deal. It takes 3 hours so if you miss it, it's a long wait until one comes back AND we had friends of his meeting us on the other side and we had no cell phones while in NZ and therefore no way to contact them. Much finger crossing and praying then occurred. At the last minute they put us in with the trains (well the car itself, they didn't make us stay with the trains)

Driving down the train tracks to put the car on the ferry, yep it's a little disconcerting driving on train tracks...

The scenery was beautiful but the water was pretty choppy that day and it was freeeeezzzing cold out! Many on the boat got sea sick, including my poor miss Maunia. She was verrrry green around the gills. :-(

Karewa took us to see his family's Marae. It's a sacred building where they celebrate customs and each family's marae is unique.

The design of each beam has a symbolic meaning

If you look closely you can see the hand in the side of this carving. Karewa said it meant something like "keep your family safe in your hands"...something to that affect. It was all about keeping family safe and protected when they may be away from home.

I like the little lizard on this one.

Karewa also took us to his family's burial ground. It was really neat to see, but I didn't really feel like it was appropriate to photograph.

Parliament

Downtown Wellington. It was a pretty city but we had been out in the middle of nowhere for 8 days and it felt so crowded to me to come back to the city.

Wellington airport. See that one strip of road...yep, the really short one...you better hope your pilot knows what he's doing.

Wellington

Rugby stadium

Karewa's kids met up with us at the marae and they said since it was so nice and warm out (it was 12 degrees...12!...and they weren't joking, they really thought it was warm) they decided to grab fish and chips and have a picnic. The food was fabulous and the company was great :-)

As the sun set we said goodbye to Karewa and his family and headed for Wanganui

I can't remember the name of these falls...but they're pretty :-)

This is the fountain outside of our hotel in Wanganui

We tried to vary the hotel experience as much as we could and find fun places to stay as much as possible. Tonight's lodging was built in 1926. It was a really cool old hotel.

Love the decor in the "kitchen"...that's OK, it worked for making "drinking chocolate" Drinking chocolate kind of became a nightly staple for us.

The girls thought this was pretty funny. The button had gotten turned sort of diagonal. They thought it would be really cool if the elevator really went diagonal...it would be very Willy Wonka-ish

There were 4 beds smashed in this little hotel room and the bathroom was big enough for...mice...but it was a cool experience just the same.

Just some randomness from the day. Sierra and I liked these hills that looked like they had wrinkles.

They use a lot of coins in NZ. We were perpetually confused on money. $1 is a coin and then you have $.20 cent coins and a bunch of others and I'm not sure we ever really did get it straight.