We have a big travel day today and have to get up at the ungodly hour of 0430.  We leave Christchurch before 0500 barely awake.  Not too excited to be driving in the pitch black with low flying clouds and fog all around.  It makes for slow going. 

The drive is about 4.5 hours on a two lane windy road along the coast and up and over the mountains.  The beautiful moon is still out but the moving car makes it difficult to get a good clear shot of her.  I guess if you have to travel so early it is a blessing to be rewarded with the moon and sun rise.

Two hours into our journey the sun starts to come up.  What a beautiful site to see after traveling in the darkness.

I have yet to post photos of us in the car – probably because it is not too exciting, but here we are.

Lucky for us, we arrive with 20 minutes to spare.  We had to be at the ferry dock before 1000 which is the last time vehicles can check in and we arrived at 0940.

Picton Ferry Dock

We get in the que (NZders love their ques), get our pass and pull into the loading lines.  By 1000 we were slowly moving to our ship to board.  Somehow they load all the trailers, trains, campervans, cars, motorcycles, and passengers early.  Our boat the Aratere leaves 10 minutes early.

We are very lucky that our ship left today.  We had several friends booked on the Kaiarahi and their ferry transports were cancelled.  They each received an email stating their ride was cancelled and nothing else.  Evidently, the ship broke down and is out of service for a week!  We are so blessed!

Wellington

We arrive into Wellington just in time to check in to our hotel West Plaza Wellington.  After we drop off the car we walk down to the city center and hop on the cable car.  

The cable car celebrated 121 years this year.  It is 785 meters long and rises 199m up.  It goes through three tunnels and 4 viaducts.  The two cable cars are powered by a steam engine which powers a winding gear that drives a continuous wire rope / haulage cable.  This operates one line or track which can haul two cars in either direction.

Two of the three tunnels are lit up in a colorful design.  They can even custom design the light show for special occasions.

The 2023 cable car (top left) and the track (top right)

The top photo is the original winding house for the cable car system which operated this line from 1902 to 1978.  The cable car on the lower left is car #1 and the one on the right is cable car #3.  Both original, both restored to their former beauty.

Cool experience and interesting museum to explore.  It was a long travel day to get to Wellington, but worth the drive in the end.

• Kilometers Traveled: by car: 361km by boat 67km
• Hotel: West Plaza Hotel Wellington
• Total travel time:  9 hours
• Kilometers walked: 5.2km

Events from this blog post occurred in mid-March.  Because we have so many interesting and thrilling things to share with you, we created more blogs.  Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind live events.  We explore Christchurch and learn about the massive earthquake that destroyed 85% of the city in our last blog post.