Up early - brekkie and then miraculously left by 8am. I drove us to Pilton - 4 hours of stupidly bendy mountain roads - and I only hit one thing! Some fast beautiful open valley roads too - it really felt like we were going somewhere!
Things were flying about in the back again - great fun. No-one complained - I guess they really didn't want to drive! We stopped once, to take a look at Havelock. We drove onto Pilton, tried a few things at the Dutch bakery. Very scenic port. Second hand books. Finally bought a belt.
Caught the ferry - getting on it was the biggest bump yet. Book-head collision, which Jim understandably found funny. Great views - incredibly windy. Deck ten was soon shut.
In the on-board pub, Jim and I drank dark lager and listened to a passable jazz band. The guys from the Wellington Cultural Exchange were on board. It was a struggle to stand up, I think this would be good practise for the kind of culture they were looking to imbibe on their trip.
Went and sat at the front of the boat. One block was being very sick. A ferry company employee came past me to get some more sick bags. "Power chucker!" he declared when he saw our amusement. Lesley was in no state to be amused however, she was feeling worse for wear. Waves smacked right into the front of boat; each time it took a few seconds before we could see out of the front again. With the rows of seats in front of us, it was like sitting in a weird cinema. All the chuckers had gathered there because being able to see out of the window made them feel less sick. When the captain announced that the blinds on all windows would be shut because the light from them makes it harder for the captain to see when docking at the destination port, there was a huge collective groan. Oh no! Hilarious!!
We drove from the ferry and headed to Matt and Natalie's place. We said tentative goodbyes should we not be able to meet the following day. Their place was very cosy and Matt was making a fire as we arrived. It was so strange to see them on the other side of the world. We chatted for quite a while about what we all had been up to and then headed out to brave the cold. Wellington had real roads and modern buildings. We went to a Turkish restaurant that they had tried before. It was pretty good, packed with the Friday evening crowd. I don't think we lasted long after dinner, zzzzzz....
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