Down through the length of New Zealand’s south island! Each day a different town and the adventures we had along the way will be told in a series of blogs.

Starting with us leaving the north island:

First we went down to Palmerston North to pick up our grandchildren and their connections… making a grand total of eight of us (in two vehicles). 

We traveled during night, down to Wellington in order to catch the huge ferry that would take us to the south island. 

Moving houses!

While travelling down to wellington, we came across a house been transported. Can you believe it, a whole house! It was been taken to its new resting place, wherever that was going to be. 

(I’ve included here a photo of another house we actually saw been moved some days before, arriving on site in the early morning.  Just so you can get some idea of the magnitude of the job in hand.)

Houses are mostly built out of wood and panelling in New Zealand. This makes it easy to buy and move it to the plot of land you have previous bought. Houses may only be moved within one island, because houses are not ferried between islands. 

Because houses are large and transported by huge bedrock trucks, and take up the whole width of the road, they move them only during the night, as there is less traffic then. So when you’re on the roads at night and a house is been transported up the road towards you, you have to drive off the road and park until they pass. 

At the Wellington docks:

We arrive too early to board the ferry. So we toured the streets a little while, until we were allowed to line up for the ferry. 

While lining up we saw huge vehicles and massive trucks also lining up, in their allotted separate queues. My husband couldn’t believe all our cars and those huge vehicles got onto the ferry. But when it’s your turn to board with your car (everyone still in their cars) you see how humongous the ferry really is.

Each car is anchored in place on the ferry. Car alarms have to be switched off. With the rolling of the waves you can imagination the noise if the alarms were to set off while out to sea!! 

After your car is safely parked, you get out and climb the stairs to where you sit in closed upper decks. It was still night by the time the ferry left Wellington harbour. 

It was a most exciting voyage:

As the ferry left Wellington city, we went on deck you to see the lights of Wellington and the harbour lights twinkled in the distance as you pass slowly out to sea.  

You ask yourself, “Is this really happening to me? Am I just dreaming? Am I seeing all this and doing all this?! Wow. What an adventure!” 

Going in, through the outer fiords:

When you reach the south island, you come in through fiords (sea channels between impressive mountain ranges). 

On the shores of the mountain ranges you see here and there little inlets or landing bays. And a little way up the sides of the mountains, little houses and chalets. I thought to myself, these people must use boats to go out to do their monthly grocery shopping! Even to bring in building materials etc! And I supposed some of them must be rented out as holiday accommodations too. 

Our adventure on this huge ferry was so profound. You felt you couldn’t waste a moment of it. 

So going back out onto the deck, I took photos of these mountains as we slide by. They looked absolutely beautiful and romantic in the early morning mist. 

But you can’t stay out on the open deck for long, because of the cold wind tugs at you, and you have to hold tight to the railing. This all adds drama to the experience I guess. 

But the sight of those mountain islands, is such an impressive and intense experience! It’s beyond words! You can only picture it in all its glory and detail, if you were actually there to see it. Cameras can’t ever make justice to it. 

Arriving in Picton:

The massive ferry eventually found its way into harbour. So it was time to re-claiming our cars and drive off the ferry and out through the town of Picton, and on our merry way down south. 

The weather was overcast and misty that day, but yet we still held great expectations of our trip down through the south island of New Zealand. 

There will be more: 

• Hope you continue to follow my series on our trip through New Zealand. (@artguru. Each with the same New Zealand icon image). 
• We had the most unbelievable, incredible and exciting time of our lives! We did and saw so much, I’ve had to break it all up, thus making it possible to give more expression to each session.