Wellington - South Island

We've been out of contact for a while now, so it'll be tough to catch up - so I'll try to be brief but informative.

Last thing I mentioned (except for the travel update) was the rugby in Wellington. Well, after that we visited the wildlife sanctuary of Karori. The government have set aside a few acres of Wellington suburbs for a wildlife sanctuary to try to regain some ground for native species (particularly birds) who have struggled against introduced predators. While we were there we saw saddlebacks, wax-eyes, hihis, kakas (I'm not making these up - ask James), NZ wood pigeons and a few others in their native habitats. These are wild birds - they aren't caged - but the sanctuary itself just has a predator-proof fence around it.

Before we left Wellington, we took a city highlights tour (on which we were the only passengers!) which took us around a few locations such as places where the LOTR films were shot and PJ's own studio and various picturesque spots. We did the "Red Rocks" walk - past some red rocks(!) to a seal colony. We got pretty close to the seals (before reading the "don't approach within 20m of the seals) but we were lucky 'cos they were pretty chilled out. It did rain on the way back, but we were suitably prepared - and got ourselves some brekkie when we got back.

We left "windy" Wellington on the Interislander ferry and picked up our next Stray bus in Picton - our first sight of the South Island. We should have seen it earlier, but it was a bit misty in Wellington, so we just saw a rather ominous murk...

Our first overnight stop on the South Island was for the Abel Tasman National Park. We stayed in a little place called "the barn" which was a converted barn. It was pretty comfortable, but the roof was a bit low. It was nice though, cos they had some cats.

In the morning we went for a quick cruise around the bays of the park in a catamaran. (Luckily no sightings of infamous pirate, Peg-Leg Tam!). We saw some more seals, cormorants, trees, water etc, but nothing too spectacular. We walked back home along part of the AT Coastal Track.

We then moved on to a small place called Barrytown. It was here when the Stray experience lost some of its sheen for us. There are a few things wrong with the Stray service and although we'd experienced some of them before, we put them down to minor glitches or particularly difficult passengers. Now we've been with Stray for a while, these things just keep happening and it's getting more noticeable.

1. Stray gives you a very limited number of activities and usually these things are only recommended because Stray either run them themselves - or know the people who do.
2. See 1. but for accommodation.
3. Prices quoted seem to vary. It may be only 1-5 dollars, but these things add up.
4. The drivers can be rather lax about getting things sorted and making sure everyone's OK - particularly people not doing recommended activities or staying in recommended accommodation.

In the future we've vowed to be a lot more careful about where we stay and what we do.

Anyway, moving on to more Barrytown... The place we stayed is run by a mate of the owner of Stray. On the whole it's a nice enough place - not far from the beach and close to a few activities - but it's basically a bar with rooms outside. Perfect for most of the crowd we've found ourselves travelling with. We had been told about a knife-making activity that was no-longer recommended by Stray that was a good day activity (highly recommended by a North Island Stray driver no less) which was better than any of the other stuff, so we decided to give that a shot. Find out about our knife-making efforts next time - check out the facebook photos though!