18/12/2015 - NYE 2015/16 South Island road trip day #1 - Wellington to Blenhiem

Day 1:  Today actually started out with a trip to the grocery store.  However before that I picked up Rebecca at work around noon.   We then dropped off the cat at the cattery for her "Christmas hotel visit" per se.  We then went to the grocery store, got some nice refrigerated food for my 41 L refrigerator on board.   The beauty of having a real refrigerator versus just an icebox, is that we don't need to worry about things going bad/rotten.   This is a major difference in all other van trips have ever done with regards to food.  Using an ice chest or cooler box, food only last for about a day and you need to keep buying ice to keep it cold..  That's a real downer!

Anyway, we got a grocery shopping done, I filled up the reserve tank with 86L of diesel at only $.99 per litre.  This is dirt cheap!  I'm going to use this for the end of the trip which will fill up my main tank two times.   Or I will use it in case I offroading and need to top off my main tank.

So we went to the ferry early with the assumption that it will be very busy; our assumption was correct!   We got there there was already along queue of vehicles.    Our departure was set for 5 PM, but we started aboard after 4:15 PM which seems little late considering all the lorries, cars, vans and trucks that need to go on board.  For some reason the ferry departed late even though the weather was good.  

During the ferry ride over, the captain was announcing that we were going to hit rough seas and to be prepared.  Well this never happened!  The water was smooth as as a babies butt!  Was quite a pleasant cruise actually with good scenery on the way, in a nice sunset to share with Rebecca.  While the sun wasn't actually setting, but rather it was hiding behind the mountains.  We didn't see any dolphins, whales to many seabirds along this way was quite surprised me! We were supposed to arrive in Picton at 8 PM, but we got there late at 8:15 PM.  I Can't understand why because the ocean was quite smooth.



Anyway, we departed the ferry dock at about 8:30 PM, and then drove through Picton on our way to Blenheim.   I honestly didn't really feel like driving too much but I was tired from today's activities, so we look for a spot to pull over and sleep.  On the left, about 20 minutes away from the ferry dock, we saw a little turnoff with a bunch of vans there.  It was a free, freedom camping spot for all sorts of vehicles.  There were only supposed to be 12 vehicles there according to the signage, but we pulled in and made it number 13.  Soon after we arrived, a few more vehicles arrived (probably from the ferry) and parked up for the night.  

Most travelers there had already eaten their dinner, but we were starving so we pull out the cooker and made a late dinner.  We're both very tired so we went to bed.  We put up the solar shields all the windows, and quickly fell asleep by 10 PM.   Tomorrow is going to be a good day!