Beating sea sickness

Well I have made it to Picton so am back on the South Island. My last blog update I was heading to Wellington and my journey was pretty uneventful except for some very strong gusts of wind, which should have been a sign of things to come. I made it in to Wellington and drove round for ages trying to find the youth hostel, which, once located was full. I than drove around some more looking for alternative, as parking anywhere in the vague proximity of the information office was proving impossible.


After an hour of getting no where fast, although I was getting a good feel of this very windy city and the lack of parking and I decided to stop at the first hotel I saw. Hang the expense. So I stayed the night at the Duxton Hotel (they had a special on but it still was well beyond my usual budget level) where they had valet parking (bless them). As it was so hideous out (I almost got taken out by a metal chair from a cafe that decided to fly at me down the pavement) I made the most of my room (well given the fact I couldn't really afford it, would have been rude not to) so I had a decadent evening with my own bathroom (man I was enjoying that bath until housekeeping starting pounding on my door about turning my sheets down, I explained that I was in the bath and could turn my own sheets down later, it really wouldn't be a problem) and my own TV (oh yes, lots of TV wonderfulness for me to watch). I even went mad and ordered some room service. Lovely. Later when I looked out my window the weather had melted down even further, with some really quite spectacular horizontal rain action going on. But just cos I was getting the ferry the next morning, I refused to be worried.

Anyway, my radio alarm in the room went off at 7am and the news was on. Turns out that after facing 10m high waves the night before, people had been injured on the interslander ferry by some flying furniture (various cracked ribs and broken arms) and a lot of the cars had been totalled (they shifted in transit so the proud owner of a Porsche discovered when they docked that a truck had landed on top of it - nice!). As you can imagine it was chaos and the outlook was not good for the ferry going that day.

I however refused to be defeated (mainly because I didn't have a clue what else to do) but checked out, picked up my car for our final journey together and headed to the ferry where I was to drop the car off (turns out I just had to park it in a certain section of the car pack and drop the keys in a box, which is worrying as I hope that they don't invent damage to the car without me there... oh well I have to have some faith in human nature, despite all my years living in London, right?).

I went in to the departures area where there were people how had turned up for the ferry the night before (last one didn't go out) and people who were due to go on the 8.30am crossing (I was booked on the 10.35am crossing). All our crossings were officially cancelled but the lovely people at Interislander had got their biggest ferry (therefore safest to go over in gale force winds and by this point more subdued 5-6m high waves) and we were all getting on it (the joy of being a foot passenger). We boared at 10am. We actually left at gone 2pm, so it has been a very long day.

It was good though, as there was a definite camaraderie on board, mainly I think because people were so relieved to be heading off at all, plus there was the impending threat of sea sickness. Following advice from one of the crew I sat in the bar area near the back of the boat. I was soon surrounded by a really nice bunch of people. A lovely couple from Palmerston North fed me ginger as that is supposed to prevent sea sickness. I had a great chat with a guy that had come down from Auckland and had been waiting to leave since the night before. A group of people from the Ulysses bikers group made me laugh through the roughest parts of the journey, while in the calm final hour in to Picton, once we were out of open seas and in the sounds I had a nice chat with a chap, recovering from sea sickness who was en route to Dunedin to see his 3 month old son. It was great and I wasn't sick once, which my mum will attest to being unusual, as I normally get travel sick looking at a boat. It was actually really good fun and great to chat to such a lovely mix of people. We were a bit concerned when we saw a bit of the ship fly off during the journey (it looked like a railing - when the crew were told about it they looked concerned and asked if anyone had been attached to it at the time, fortunately we hadn't seen anyone go in with it!). It would have been hard for anyone to get swept overboard though since the sun deck was closed as it just wasn't safe to be out there.

I picked up my new car (a Nissan pulsar that feels like a toy after my lovely peugeot and which for some reason has a child seat in it, I didn't ask why as it may come in handy if I decide to pick up any under 3 yr old hitch hikers) and can now sympathise with Andy H as my indicators are on the other side of the wheel, so now it is me putting on my windscreen wipers every time that I want to turn a corner... oopsie.

I am at a hostel that seems nice called Sequoia lodge, and will be here for a couple of nights, as there are supposed to be some really nice walks and kayaking trips around here that I want to investigate tomorrow after a good nights sleep.

Anyway I have precisely 1 1/2 minutes left before my money runs out, so I had better upload this.

Love to all