Road Trip : Picton to Christchurch

The ferry ride itself was alrite, althou it was fairly rough after we'd left Wellington to open waters. I was plannin to watch movie durin the trip but for some reason or another I had to stick just hanging around.. I visited the deck few times just to take few photos.

Leaving Wellington & North Island

Arriving to Picton & South Island

Once we were approaching Picton the whole scenery was almost completely different in South Island than in North Island. You could really witness the presence of mountains right next to you. After getting out from ferry I headed to the closest camping spot in Rarangi. I took a wee look at the spot that was right next to the shore but felt that this was gonna be too open place and since forecast had promised fairly cold nite I decided to head to the next one, Whites Bay. To get there I had to start climbing up a mountain up and down, another beautiful drive even a short one. This was fairly popular spot and I spent the night chatting with British and Irish/French couples. The next mornin I woke up fairly early, took a few photos and hit the road again.

I was still unsure at which day I wanted to reach Christchurch. I drove to Blenheim and did a bit of re-stocking in Countdown. After that it was time to phone NZ Immigration again. All the time my reason to come to New Zealand was to get a job. I already had a job offer and had lodged my application before departing Auckland to Christchurch where I was gonna be based. Didn't really get the news that I wanted but what the heck, I still had few days to get to Christchurch, back on the road again. I had a slight plan to stop somewhere close to Kaikoura but that all changed after just about 15min drive from Blenheim. I got a call from my immigration officer and she told me that she needs the original police certificate that was sent to my employer in Christchurch and then she can approve my work visa asap. So, this day turned out to be a race down to Christchurch, get my original certificate and deliver it to immigration office. Road down south was just absolutely amazing, especially when it was twisting next to shoreline while hugging mountains. I did few brief stops for photos but other than that, just kept drivin down to reach Christchurch in time. Got there on time, managed to deliver my certificate and now as I'm writing this blog entry, I'm having my first day off after 6days of work and back to business again tomorrow morning. As you might guess, I'm back on trucking again, this time carrying refrigerated goods in Christchurch metro area. I will be posting more from Christchurch when I get settled down better and have time to explore the area better. But for now it's time settle down, at least for awhile. Who knows if it'll even be permanent..

Road Trip : Wellington

When I woke in Manakau, Austrian girls were gone, oh well, no-one to keep company on brekkie.. Since I wasn't on any rush to Welly, I took my time drinkin my coffee and headed south. I took a brief look at Otaki, nothing to see, really and so I kept goin on. My next stop was Paraparaumu where I went for i-Site to book my ferry tickets, I decided to go for Bluebridge on Sunday afternoon. I stayed there for awhile, tryin to decide where would I stay the night, either hostel for two nites or first nite on some free site and the next on hostel. Just couldn't make up my mind so started drivin down south slowly. After awhile, road twisted right next to the coast, hugging the mountains, what a view.. Soon, Wellington opened up in front of my eyes for the first time.

Still unsure of what to do, I was heading to another i-Site but this time it seemed to be almost impossible to reach it. Firstly, it was in the middle of CBD with no parking right next to it and secondly, there was some bloody parade preventing me actually to get besides the centre.. I had to do a detour for quite a few blokes, thanks to one-way streets and prohibited left-hand turns but eventually got fairly close to it and parked my camper and ran to centre. Well, that didn't prove to be much more helpful either.. Finally, started to find some better information about the hostel pricing and one thing was really surprising me - cost of car parking.. Majority of the hostels didn't even had a car park and the ones that had, were charging like $20/night!!! Bloody hell, better find a free spot for the 1st nite, I'll figure something out the next day. I did remember that lassie in Paraparaumu that there might be few free spots around bays of Welly, so off I went. I took few photos from the first beach I encountered and kept driving. By accident, I passed this wee car park right on the edge of water and there was few vans already parked in there, so.. I was still quite unsure about the place, expecially since it was right next to housing on the shore and kept on searching about freedom camping in Wellington. Found few articles about it and voila, this was the place for freedom camping in Welly, lucky me.

The next morning I drove to the top of Mt Victoria for views and after that I headed for my chosen hostel, just outside CBD, which I had chosen cause of the free parking even it didn't had that good ratings online. But hey, all I was after was a free car parking and a bed for the nite and possibly some other backpackers to chat with and possibly head out later on. After my check-in, I took my camera and headed out for stroll. I tried to cover as much of CBD as I could. Even popped in at the Museum of New Zealand but to be honest, I was a bit disappointed on it, maybe a bit too confusing place..

Reckon I was walkin about 4-5hrs all in all but to be honest, I didn't really like te feel of Wellington, it felt a bit too cramped, everything stuffed so close to everything, not so much open spaces around. Nice city, nevertheless, but not for me, at least with one day experience. I headed back to my hostel in hope of some good company and possibly a night out but that turned out to be a bit of disappointment, not much going on in my hostel, oh well.. And, I had the strange experience of having a 5bed dorm all to myself. Not that I was complaining. On the next morning I did my brekkie and headed towards the ferry terminal. I parked up my camper next to parliament and off with the camera again. Another 1,5hrs of photos and to harbour waiting for my ferry to South Island. Apparently, there was an earthquake a bit south of Wellington while I was parked in terminal but I never felt anything..