Cable Bay, NZ - Day 79

Maori's got it right when they named NZ, Aotearoa (roughly translated means - Land of the Long white Cloud) ....no sh*t!! We've crossed the north island and still not seen a ray of sunshine. So we were hoping for some excitement on the ferry but our crossing went by without incident and the sun has finally started breaking through the clouds in some places as we sailed into Picton (allowing for a few better pics). We had some unexpected company during the crossing. Steph and Darren, an Irish couple we met in Walu Beach(Fiji) were checking in on the same ferry that morning at 7am. Steph has died her hair neon pink so have no idea how Kimmy recognized her. We're pretty much doing the same route but they have decided on using a hop-on-hop-off coach so will hopefully be seeing them on route all the way to Bali.

Disappointed at the lack of excitement on the ferry we trudged off to the info desk in Picton to try and figure out if our planned route to Nelson was still available. The weather was taking it toll with mud and rock slides across the entire country blocking national roads everywhere. A small slice of luck - our route to Nelson was the only one that was open! routes to Christchurch and further south are going to be blocked for days - there were a few grumpy travellers at the desk, thankfully it wasn't us.

We counted about 20slides covering the road and even a sink hole that had obliterated one side of the very narrow Queen Charlotte Crive. Drove in 2 gear all the way through the pass (about 50km) but, the drive was worth it - we finally have a little sunshine as we've reach the West coast at Cable Bay. Hopefully things are starting to brighten up for our last few weeks.

We've booked our ski packages for Queenstown on the 8th so the next few days will be spent making our way south through glacier country. Can't wait to go skiing!