New Zealand Vacation

Thursday February 8:
Christchurch - Picton

We bade fond good byes to Davy & Libby. Jenny suggested we take a tour of the house of Ngaio Marsh, a mystery writer of the Agatha Christie school. The tour was by appointment only, and we were the only takers on this morning. 15 minutes into the tour, and I found myself not too interested, so I begged off and started one of her novels instead while Jenny did the tour.

I forgot what it was that occasioned my call to Shoestring Rentals, but I found that they were expecting us in Picton at 10:00 AM, and they had a customer waiting for Rosinante. No way we were going to make it by then. He gave us until noon. I ignored this ultimatum. It eventually resulted in a lot of hard feelings and an additional day’s charge (which I thought was fair). We made the long drive to Picton, stopping off in Waipuri for lunch. Waipuri is famous for whale-watching tours, but we didn’t have the time.

Arrived in Picton and took a room in the Picton Lodge for the night. Even though it meant an obscenely early start the next day, we had to stay in Picton and catch the 5:00 AM ferry to Wellington to make our first flight home, because there was not a room to be had in Wellington. There was some sort of major rugby match going on.

By this time, my brain was fried with long drives and International Date Line confusion, and I came to a remarkable discovery: Guess what? We have an extra day! We tried to figure what we would do for a day in Picton with no car and not much town. And then I came to another remarkable discovery: Guess what? No we don't have an extra day after all.

Early bedtime for long day tomorrow.

Friday, February 9:
Home

Make that a loooooong day. Friday started at 4:00 AM in Picton, NZ. It ended 11:00 PM in Boonton, NJ…37 hours later. Other than dolphins at dawn off the ferry in the Sound, there was little to note about our passage except, perhaps, that all the ferries and flights were on time, and all our luggage got to the same destinations as we did.

I got home to discover that my house had no heat. Fortunately, it had not been cold enough for any pipe-freezing, and I discovered and fixed the problem after a few minutes’ investigation.

Good trip.