NZ Trip - Day 7 - Picton/ Kaikoura

Today is another travel day, but an exciting one, doing a Ferry inter-island crossing. Given the early morning departure, we said our good byes to my friend and came to the ferry terminal in good time. There are a couple of ferries crossing the islands but I booked Bluebridge as I could get a private cabin for my family to relax and shower while we crossed through the Cook Strait. It was a bit of a wait in the car, but we boarded the ferry to be awed by the amount of bug trailer trucks already locked snd loaded inside. It was way bigger than what i thought it would be. While the facilities were just adequate, the crossing itself was a lovely experience. 

We left the Pacific Coast and travelled through clear and calm waters for the first half of the journey. In the second half, the stunning beauty of Marlborough Sound captivated us all through.  Every hill in the mountain range had a different look and feel and various shades of colours. I almost hate my camera for not capturing the true beauty of the nature out here. The viewing deck became increasingly crowded as we made our way towards Picton in South Island, twisting and turning in the gaps between the mountain ranges. 

As a Google contributor, it had prompted me for some reviews based on my travel, which I had provided the day before. It was a pleasant surprise to see that all the review comments had got replies from the service providers, irrespective of whether it was a big or small firm and whether thr reviews were positive or negative feedback. This is again something that I feel differentiates NZ from the rest of the world, with excellent customer service standards!

Alighting at Picton, we found an Indian restaurant nearby where we had a nice lunch, seeing the rains lash out and cover the opposite mountains in fog. As the rain relented, we started on our drive to Kaikoura through beautiful vineyards. At Bleinheim, I was briefly lost and while I was figuring out through google maps,  I was almost T-boned by a lorry at a major roundabout. I was thinking SH1 had priority all the way through, but apparantly not!

For sometime afterwards, it was a homogenous landscape, so it was a bit boring after a while. However, NZ doesn't disappoint for long. 

I fell in love with the Pacific Ocean at first sight, coming down the mountains, that I had to make a hard stop and take a picture! The drive along the Pacific Coast, with mountains draped on one side and the biggest ocean on the other, was mesmerising to say the least. At one point I stopped 3 times within 5 minutes to take pictures that annoyed my sleeping daughter no end! 

The third of those stops was to take a picture against a rocky shore backdrop, but I stumbled upon hundreds of seals resting and playing on or near the rocks, along with a colony of ever-present seagulls! I was so excited that I had to get my family to come down and enjoy the sight. A couple of km away, we stopped at a place where we could trek down some loose rocks to touch the Pacific Ocean. We realised the rocky shore was also home to a couple of seal carcasses as well, but nothing is going to stop our pleasure today as we touched the cold Pacific waters on a drizzly summer afternoon! 

Finally we reached Kaikoura and had a smooth checkin to the Top10 resort, where the motel unit were surprisingly clean and spacious, stocked with almost everything we need. We had a bit of bad news as the weather has turned stormy, so the dolphin tour planned for tomorrow is at risk. This made us want to soak in as much of Kaikoura as possible tonight, but we could hardly get out of the accommodation due to the heavy rain and winds.