Unfortunately, today would be our last day on the South Island of New Zealand.  After loading up our rental vehicle one last time, we spent the morning driving around the Blenheim area, and stopped at a couple of wineries.

After a quick wine tour, we headed up the road to Picton to meet the Interislander ferry to Wellington.  It’s only about a 30-minute drive from Blenheim to Picton, where we dropped our rental truck and checked our baggage for the ferry ride.  During our time on the South Island, we put about 2,200 kilometres on our vehicle.

Below is a picture of our ship, Kaitaki.

Once on board, we got settled in the first class lounge for some lunch before shoving off for the North Island.

The scenery heading through the passages that leave the north island was lovely.  The crossing would take just over 3 hours.

Here we are getting closer to the end of the string of little islands at the top end of the South Island.

Now out in the open water, I left the outside viewing area and returned to the lounge.  The seas were picking up with about a 5.5 metre swell.  Not really a problem for this ship, which is designed to make the open ocean crossing.  Inside, we just felt a gentle rocking motion.  In addition to about 1,000 passengers, these ferries also carry cars, trucks, buses and even trains on one of the decks.

Approaching the North Island, we would visit the capital city of Wellington as our last stop in New Zealand.  Wellington, at the south end of the North Island, is approximately in the centre of the country, which is why it was designated the capital city many years ago (at one time, Auckland was the capital).  There are approximately 180,000 people in the city, and 450,000 in the Wellington regional area.

We arrived in Wellington to find cloudy skies and a bit of rain, which is a sharp contrast to the beautiful sunny weather when we left Picton at the top of the South Island.  We claimed our bags and took a taxi to our hotel.

This morning we awoke to another beautiful sunny day.  As I was loading the luggage into the truck, I snapped this photo of the motel.

Before heading out of town, we wanted to take a driving tour of the Christchurch area.  In particular, we wanted to take a trip out of the downtown area and into the hills that surround the city and then down to the ocean.

We wound our way around the narrow and twisty road that goes around the nearby hills.  While not has high as some of the other mountain roads we have been on, this one still gives you a nervous feeling, because it doesn’t seem to have any guard rails.

Because the road follows the summit of the hill, there are great views off both sides of the road.  This picture is looking down at the city of Christchurch.

This photo is looking over the opposite side of the road.

In the early afternoon, we got on the road to Blenheim.  The drive would take us up the east coast of the South Island.  Not as mountainous as some of our previous drives, it was still very hilly in most places, and it was obvious we were heading into wine country, as there were more and more vineyards along the road.  We also had some wonderful ocean views as we wound along the coastline for much of the drive.

The following sign is not actually a warning about bad cars ahead!  A ford is also a shallow place where you cross a river by driving through it.  I heard about these on small country roads (and even saw a number of them), but I didn’t expect to see them on main state highways with heavy traffic loads.

There was no water when we went through, but I would imagine that during heavy rains it might look very different.

When we arrived in Blenheim, you could tell we were in the heart of wine country.  There were large vineyards everywhere, including some very large and modern wineries.  You could literally smell the wine while driving into the area!

We eventually arrived at our motel and settled in for the evening.

With nothing specific planned for our stay in Christchurch, our plan today was to basically wander around the city.  With a population of about 400,000, Christchurch is the largest city on the South Island of New Zealand.

We walked down to Cathedral Square in the city centre, found the i-site to pick up some touring maps, and began our day of leisurely wandering and shopping.

Christchurch is a lovely city.  We had a wonderful day of exploring, and in the evening we enjoyed the best dinner of our trip so far.