I slept in, which I was happy about and was able to shower in a real bathroom at the Air B&B. We left and headed for a nearby mall. Next to it was a bagel shop where we each got coffee and breakfast. Now that our day was started, we went into the mall. I intended on returning one of my previous purchases but decided not to. We looked around for a place to get our nails done, we've been in need of a little pampering. And two months of camping and being on the road hasn't allowed much time to kind of be a little bit girly.
We left the mall and headed to Salvation Army where Cassela was hoping they'd have bikes for sale. After, we drove back towards the main part of town, found parking and walked to the nail shop. We all got ours done in about an hour and then walked over to Cuba Street. It's a well-known pedestrian street in Wellington that has a lot of good shops, bars, and restaurants. We stopped into a few cute shops before eyeing a Mexican place. We ordered a margarita pitcher and guacamole with chips and our waiter was about our age and from Iowa.
We continued walking around for a bit before we headed over to the big museum. It was free to get in but not free to park. We walked through the nature and wildlife exhibit which was quite well done. The giant squid that was preserved is apparently the biggest one on display in the world. Then we went into the war exhibit which was about the battles with the Turks back in the early 1900's. It was a big maze through the exhibit and there were a handful of massive, lifelike models of men during war. They were absolutely incredible and so perfect that you thought they were going to come alive. The sweat on their brow, the facial expressions, and the hardship in their eyes was so real. We were all in awe.
After the museum, we drove towards one of Wellington's few sandy beaches. It was small and not very crowded. We hung out for a little bit and then headed for Chinese food. We attempted to find a place we found on TripAdvisor but the road was blocked off because they were doing a big demolishing project on one of the nearby buildings so we went to another one in the area. It had alright food but nothing amazing. After, we drove to Mount Victoria. It was a windy narrow road up to it but the view from the top was wonderful. There was a view of the greater part of the city, the ships at the terminal, and the bay. A lot of people were up there to watch the sunset too. We were up there for a good while before we headed down.
We went to find Wifi but when we were walking to a Burger King, we were stopped by an interesting little shop. They sold gourmet waffles so of course we got one. (Lots of not so good eating on this day since we planned to start our keto diets tomorrow...) After a while in BK, we headed to the ferry terminal. We made a few wrong turns but eventually made it. This was the first time that I took a car on the ferry so we drove around and got in line with everyone else. We organized a bag and snacks for the voyage and waited quite a long time to board. We drove our car (we named her Helga, by the way) and headed up to the lounge area on the ship. Since this was the 12:30am sailing, we brought our sleeping bags and pillows on board, and so did a lot of other passengers. We got settled on the floor in our bags and we were hoping to get some shut eye before we arrived in Picton at 4 in the morning.
We heard over the PA system that the seas were less than favorable. We weren't really sure exactly what that entailed but we soon found out. The seas became so rough that the boat began rolling and when it came down after a wave, it crashed onto the water, taking us for a ride. It was violent and loud and got even worse. We were worried about our car down on the lower deck and we soon came to realize that we were not going to get a wink of sleep. We were wide awake. People stirred and the captain came back on the system and said that we were experiencing four meter swells, that's 13 feet. The attendants handed vomit bags to everyone and some people were actually quite sick. This was turning into an ordeal.
Cassela and I wanted to see what it was like outside so we clung onto rails and inched our way out to the deck. The seas didn't look crazy, but the boat was sure taking a beating and the spray from the waves was coming up high on the boat. The boat continued to rock and we carefully walked back inside. We sat back up in our seats and tried to get comfortable. A little bit later Cassela passed out and then Michealla did. I was awake for quite awhile longer until I laid on he floor and got a little bit of sleep. Once I woke up, everyone was packing up to offload. We walked down to our car and was happy to see it was okay. We waited to get the signal to drive off and drove around Picton for a little bit looking for a place to pull over. We found parking at a park and we all passed out.
