Journey: (noun) passage or progress from one stage to another

In thinking about my title, I suppose I am reporting on a shorter leg of the overall journey to Aotearoa (the Maori name for New Zealand, which I hear translates roughly to "the land of the long white cloud"). Though in reaction to the definition of "journey" that I favored, I wonder if I am expecting myself to progress from one stage to another. What personal growth am I expecting to happen on this trip? Part of me says that I've already done a fair share of travelling, and that I have somehow "arrived" (which, of course, is far from the truth). I am starting to seek out and trying to identify the ways in which I am growing, what I'm learning, etc. But anyways...on to the main point of this post!

My first trip away from Wellington was on June 18-20. I had considered staying somewhat local for the weekend, maybe catching the train to some small town just outside of Wellington and checking it out. However, I heard that my flatmates were considering taking a trip to South Island, and I decided that I would tag along.

We woke up nice and early on Friday the 18th ("we" meaning: Adam, Wes, Camille, Kendall, Amanda, and myself) and grabbed a bus to the train station. From there, we took a shuttle to the ferry terminal, got checked in, the whole enchilada. The Interislander Ferry is a massive boat that goes between the two main islands that make up New Zealand, crossing the Cook Strait in the process.

This maps out the journey that the ferry takes from Wellington (on the right) and over to Picton via Marlborough Sound (on the left)

We had a beautiful day for the trip over - the sun was shining and the skies were blue. One of the most amazing parts of the journey for me was the ferocity of the winds across the Cook Strait. Because of a lack of major land masses in the more southern parts of the globe, the winds build up a lot of momentum, and the latitude that the Cook Strait is located in is known as the "Roaring Forties." It was blowing hard enough to rip my lens cap off of my camera and chuck it overboard. Now, this may sound silly, but if I closed my eyes, I could imagine myself being in the presence of God. That's how powerful and almost overwhelming the winds were.

The ferry itself had quite a lot to do entertainment wise -- a movie theater, cafeteria, cafe area, the whole bit, but I stayed above deck for the trip over, and I'm glad I did. I would have missed out on stuff like this!

Above: On the right is the bottom of N. Island, and on the left is S. Island.

Below: You can just barely make out the mountains of S. Island through the mist. It was like looking at the shadow of trips to come!

Above: Coastline of S. Island (It kind of reminded me a little bit of Ireland's coast, just in the rockiness of it all)

Below: Some of the scenery of Marlborough Sound.

Below: Picton! The gateway to the South Island

One thing that I like about New Zealand so far is the presence of Maori culture. But more on this in posts to come!

Once we got into Picton, we found our Hostel. I wasn't expecting what we stayed in, but I wasn't disappointed either. It was, I believe, a home converted into a hostel. In any case, it was warm, dry, and comfortable enough. After getting settled in, the girls (Camille, Kendall, and Amanda) headed out on a wine tour while Adam, Wes, and I stayed in Picton to check out the aquarium. Even though the aquarium wasn't out of the park amazing, it was still pretty cool to get up close and personal with some native New Zealand fish.

I find myself amazed with the diversity of life on this planet, and with the different ways in which creatures were made to survive. Just looking at animals there are perfectly able to survive in an environment that would kill me in no time kind of boggled my mind. That may sound silly, but maybe I just live life with my eyes wide open with wonder. There is so much that can be missed when one grows accustomed to the way that things work. Anyway, some of the highlights from the aquarium included a creepy, evil green parrot that we played with (go figure, we go to an aquarium to hang out with a parrot), touching some star fish, and watching a blue penguin splash around for a while.

When the girls got back, we went out in search of dinner. If I remember correctly, we ended up at a restaurant called "Flying Haggis," where I got Fish and Chips (pretty much a New Zealand staple) and tried some of Camille's haggis. While there, we watched a bit of a rugby game on TV, at which point we ladies admired the beefiness of the rugby players (poor Adam and Wes...). After eating dinner, we actually got a follow-up dinner at a Thai restaurant. Not sure why, actually. I got some "tom yum soup," which I have decided translates directly into "really bad soup." Maybe it was just the restaurant...I don't really know.

At any rate, Amanda and Kendall headed to bed when we got back (laughably...we were still having a hard time staying up past nine or so), but Camille and I stayed up with Adam and Wes and we all played a few card games. It was a good time!

We checked out of the hostel the next morning and had some time to kill before getting on a bus to head over to Nelson (a small city on the NW tip of S. Island). We wandered around Picton (which didn't take too long). And I have to just introduce this next picture a bit. Wes is pretty awesome, and I mean that. Just a cool guy all around, we get along really well, etc. On the morning wander through Picton, he picked up a fanny pack. Behold the power of a fanny pack...

It just cracks me up, and I hope you got a chuckle out of it.

Eventually, we all loaded up on our bus, which wound through wine country, then up through some "exotic" pine tree forests (pines are not native to NZ). It was a lovely journey -- saw a few small towns, loads of sheep, and a river or two.

The unfortunate part of the trip was that we didn't have much time to hang out in Nelson. Our bus got in late in the afternoon, and we would be catching an early one back to Picton in the morning for the Ferry back. It wasn't supposed to be that way, but our original boat back to Wellington was cancelled and we had to shift our travel arrangements to make up for that. So, when we checked into our hostel, Adam asked the front desk ladies what we should do while there. They recommended that we walk to the "Centre of NZ", and that is exactly what we did.

Just being a follower on this trip, I didn't quite know what we were going to. As it turns out, the Centre of NZ is the literal geographic centre of the country, and that was located up a hill (mountain-sized hill, if you're from Michigan).

Below: (from left to right) Me (of course), Kendall, Camille, and Amanda

After our lovely climb (it really was a good hike! I enjoyed it!), we were starving and so went scavenging for food. We initially wanted a big juicy burger, but the place we had in mind was closed, and so we decided upon some pizza. Norbert enjoyed his pizza (actually, I think he's enjoying Wes's pizza here), and I did too!

The last twist of the trip was on the bus ride on the way back to Picton. We were in the middle of a mountain, and the bus driver says "oh, that's not good folks...we've lost our gears" (which I think is Kiwi for 'the transmission is shot'). We had to await rescue from another bus, which came in about a half an hour and all was on track again.

All in all, it was a fabulous weekend trip. The first of many! And more posts are in the near future to get everybody up to speed what I've been doing when I haven't been working!

Gracie