North Island to South Island Ferry – Day 79

Today we are finally making it to the South Island this is it North Island see you later hello South Island

So this is it this morning we are leaving very early trek global backpackers and we are heading toward interislander ferry terminal this is our gateway to the South Island we are stoked and just a quick tip for you guys if you take the very early morning ferry it’s actually much cheaper than taking it during the day so as we are on a budget this is the option that we are choosing for ourselves now we were bit nervous about
manoeuvring a giant camper van onto the ferry but it actually proved to be pretty easy we’re clearly directed by the workers on the ferry and we park up
no problem and start exploring the interislander ferry we are making our way around the massive stairs network of the interislander ferry to try to find a
nice vantage point for us to basically say goodbye to Wellington it has been about 76 days in the making we’ve done half the North Island we’re finally hitting the south Island

This is about to get epic there are multiple viewing decks for the Interislander ferry so we pick a good spot at the back to watch
Wellington turn smaller into the distance we can see all sorts of the Wellington region there’s mountains there’s a lighthouse in the distance we
can even see some wind turbines and it’s just an absolutely stunning day to be doing the ferry crossing as we wave goodbye to the North Island Laura and I reminisce on the amazing amount of activities that we’ve already got to do on the North Island and it’s quite crazy to think that we’ve done that much and explored only half of the North Island.

but to our surprise we are greeted by some of the staff which tell us they have a surprise for us because the crew interislander noticed all our cameras and it’s a bit of a slow morning we’ve been invited to go up to the bridge which is where the captain pilots the boat or drives the boat so we entered the bridge which looks like something out of Star Trek with all these control panels and we get a pretty unique view of the
interislander ferry as we enter the tricky navigation of the Marlborough Sounds this is when we get outside to get a better look at this beautiful
section of the South Island There’s Mountains that look like they’re just emerging from the sea absolutely covered in forest and this has to be one of the highlights of this ferry crossing between Wellington and Picton

the Marlborough sounds is world famous for being one of the most peaceful place on earth as the ferry glides through the sound it looks like nothing has moved for centuries and the land is absolutely
undisturbed usually you can see a lot of dolphin pods and also orcas but on this very cruise we actually saw none of those aside from just a few birds one lonely dolphin that we didn’t get to film and as we enter the more inner part of the sounds we get to go on top of the ferry and that’s something that just asked the captain when we’re in the bridge can I please go all the way up top to get the best view and he said
yeah yeah all right you can go up there so Laura and I get to spend the entrance of picton right on top of the ferry that’s absolutely amazing we have amazing views from all around but especially from the
top of the ferry where there’s all these equipment that I’m sure we shouldn’t really be playing around with but it’s an awesome place to get a view of picton as we arrive officially into the South Island this is the gateway to the South Island and the weather here is absolutely beautiful which Marlborough the region we’re approaching is famous for it is the sunniest place in New Zealand.

This is it we are setting foot on the South Island for the first time in this trip and the little fisherman’s village of picton has a lot to offer we are not going to be leaving picton quickly we are going to be spending time here showing you all that it has to offer and first Laura and I sit down on the front of the harbor and are watching the seal colony until dusk.

We are heading to the epic South Island. To tell you how epic that is the first city we are going to be landing in is Epicton!