Day Eight - Wellington / Picton / Greymouth

December 18 - Wow, well today was a marathon day! We had to get up really early so that we could go and catch The Interislander, the ferry from the North Island down to the South Island, but when we got there they said that the ferry was delayed about 2 hours because of bad ocean weather. So we drove into downtown Wellington and had a really good breakfast at this nice place where we were able to sit in front of floor to ceiling windows with comfy couches (very "Friends"-esque) and eat our pancakes and eggs. So it was worth having gotten up so early after all. Well once on the boat, the ocean during the three hour journey was a bit choppy, so it made for a slightly volatile ride, but not bad. No usage of the sick bags. Thankfully.

Afterwards we were dropped off in Picton, in the middle of what seemed to be a horrible winter storm, keep in mind it is the middle of summer over here. It was like some cruel joke, I was SUPER cold, and it was raining (almost on the verge of sleeting), and we were just in shock as to how unbelievably bad the weather was. So we picked up our second rental car and hightailed it out of there. This was a bit unfortunate, as we had planned on spending a day there, oh well. I'm sure we will laugh about it someday. In the distant future. So we decided to spend the day driving to Greymouth, which took us until about 7:30 in the evening. On the way in to town we passed a Subway, and I was pretty much dying for U.S. food, so that's where we ate for dinner. Unfortunately, it's just not the same. Didn't really taste like Subway, and definitely not as good as it is over in the States. The meat was really scarce, and paper thin. Oh well. So that's about it for today!! On to Franz Joseph Glacier and on to Wanaka!!