Feb 19, 2024: Wellington -> Marahau Beach Camp

Today was the breaking of the Fellowship. Team Age & Treachery headed south: Sachi and John flew to Queenstown, and the rest of us took the ferry to Picton on the south island, from where mum took a train south to Christchurch. (Although heading to the south island, we actually traveled mostly west and ended up further north in Picton than we started in Wellington!)
We like to complain about BC Ferries, but we were underwhelmed by Blue Bridge (private competitive company; Interislander also runs this route). Except for the captive audience food, which was again surprisingly tasty, Blue Bridge made our publicly managed and privately run ferries look good. Particularly annoying was the poor ratio of seating to passengers.

It was a bit of a squeeze to get 5 of us and our stuff into the rental Corolla. (Understatement of the trip.) But it was only for a short time – we dropped mum off in Picton for her train. (Spoiler, we will pick her up again and do that squeeze mode again for a much longer drive in a few days!)

We were all pretty sleepy, so copilot duty became driving duty for the first time. Except for the windshield wipers being where I expect to find turn signals, it was pretty intuitive… but then I’ve been watching the master for a few weeks now.

Alice