Eli has been feeling more under the weather with each passing day, so we’ve been taking it easy. We slept in this morning and caught up on our blogging, then drove out to catch the ferry from the North Island to the South Island. It’s about a 3 hour ferry ride, which ends with over an hour cruising through the beautiful Marlborough Sound. We drove our campervan onto the vehicle deck, then watched the scenery (and snoozed) from the protected deck. It was quite a windy day outside! Eli estimated a 40 knot wind; the ferry was listing quite heavily to the side, and there was quite the swell in addition to the white caps.

After a safe ferry ride of enjoying the teal-blue water, and beautiful coastal mountains, we landed in Picton and drove ourselves off the ferry. We decided to take the scenic, winding route to Nelson, instead of the longer highway route, so spent about an hour admiring the coastline as the road meandered its way around the mountains.

There were parking areas all along the route, where you could stop and admire the scenery. The sound has tongues of land interspersed with long waterways, and most of the land is mountainous. From our travels, we gather that logging is a major industry on this part of the island; we saw not only a giant lumber stash at the port (following picture), but also huge areas of the hillsides that were obviously deforested for lumber harvest. There are also very obvious vegetation patches where logging has occurred in the past. At least they seem to do it sustainably; there were huge monocultures of idential pine trees with pointed canopies, obviously planted in rows years ago, interspersed with the rounded treetops of the native assorted vegetation.

Eli had a grand time driving the curving road; we took some video, but without the g-forces, it fails to capture the curvy nature and fun of driving around here. Plus, you come around a corner, and all of a sudden are treated to a breathtaking view. It was quite lovely.

We got into town and found the campground (despite the best efforts of the GPS to get us lost), and got a lovely ensuite room (with its own bathroom and surprisingly comfortable beds). We had dinner at a fabulous Turkish Kabob place, recommended by the guide, which made incredibly tasty food, and had Coke in glass bottles!