We woke early as is normal and headed down to the hotel restaurant. We had the continental breakfast and made the mistake of ordering coffee as flat whites were not available. UGH! How a nation can make wonderful flat white coffee and serve this other disgusting stuff is beyond my comprehension. Out into the sunshine we went to drive up to Mount Victoria that overlooks the city. The views are stunning and we took many photographs as the 360-degree view is worth remembering. The homes that are perched on the slopes are incredible and VERY expensive. If they ever got snow here they would not be accessible as the roads are narrow and VERY steep. Cars are parked on the street and there is barely room to get by in places. We left Mt Victoria and went to the Parliament buildings and took an excellent guided tour. Parliament was not sitting so we were able to enter the floor of the “debating chamber” as well as the old upper house chamber that is no longer used as the Kiwis abolished the senate a few decades ago. We left the buildings and were greeted by a $200 ticket on the windshield! I was pleased to see that it was for a improperly registered vehicle and not a parking violation. (I made a photocopy of the ticket as I expect to have to fight this potential charge on my credit card) It was about noon and we decided to drive to the ferry terminal and try to catch an earlier ship. Unfortunately the 2 o’clock ferry was fully booked so we headed back into town and were happy to find a restaurant overlooking the harbour that had a good salad bar. It is interesting to note that it is not easy finding green salads here. Most of the meals centre on meat and potatoes and have very few greens. We lingered over lunch and finally checked into the ferry and dropped the rental car off around 4pm for the 6:15 departure. We boarded around 5:45 and found a seat next to a window and settled in for the crossing. The sea was calm and the sun was shinning most of the 3 hours crossing to the south island and I made several trips to the observation deck to soak up the salt air and capture more photographs. We had a less than memorable meal of fish and chips on board and arrived in Picton in a light drizzle to discover that the Europe Car booth was unmanned and closed for the rest of the night! Evidently, they somehow fouled up the reservations and thought we were arriving on the 1 pm ferry. (Look for future posting on Europe Car's quality service) I asked several people about getting a taxi and they asked if we had a reservation (difficult to do when one expects a rental car to be in place!), as they were difficult to acquire this late in the evening. It was now 10 pm and with no other option we commandeered a baggage cart loaded all our luggage on and walked out of the ferry terminal in a light rain towards the thriving metropolis of Picton. We felt like street people with all our belongings in a shopping cart, winding our way into this sleepy town. We only took about 20 minutes to find the Broadway Motel and were greeted warmly and shown to our room. It turns out that it the nicest place (rented) we have stayed at yet. Our room has a very large spa bath and we made good use of it before retiring to a full nights sleep.
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