Goodbye South Island - Hello Wellington!

First, a brief recap of our last day on the South Island. We left Reefton and made our way South. We made a quick stop at a swinging bridge - a super long one that people "were encouraged to pass by each other." The bridge was so narrow for that, and it was like passing people in a crowded movie theater where you just have to be like, "Sorry, here's my butt, sorry, sorry, it'll be over soon." It led to a nice walk that went over a river and a fault line apparently? And through some forest with some old gold mining equipment. Then we had to walk BACK over the bridge and that was even worse than the first time because the first time didn't have that many people actually, but the second time was like 12 people all coming the opposite way. And none of them even pretended to lean away, it was just awful. The bridge also had a limit of 15 people. But it was a nice place. Then we passed by the Hope Saddle Lookout - a beautiful view and at the lookout they had this plaque that talked about the Tasman accord. An accord signed in 1980 that protected a lot of native trees of New Zealand. It was pretty cool! It also had a compass and told you what mountains were in the distance and how far. Then we made it to Nelson for lunch and a quick beach stop! Lunch was at this place called the Styx, and I had some amazing ceviche, and the beach was nice clear blue water, and people were swimming and paddleboarding and the water was cold ( I stuck my feet in of course!) but everyone seemed to be having fun! but then it was on to Picton. In Picton we walked to a pizza place, walked back, watched Bewitched, and went to bed early. Our ferry was at 7:45 am today But to get on to it, we had to be there by 6:45am. And before 6:45 am, I had to drop off the first rental car. So we got up at 5:30 am to get there, and get myself enough time to drop off our luggage, and drop off the rental car. Which that was fine until the rental car place was a 20 min walk away from the ferry terminal with no shuttle back. I ended up running back to make it before 6:45. Luckily it didn't matter that I was a few minutes late. But we boarded at 7 am if I recall correctly, and it was...bizarre. The ferry was/Is HUGE TWO decks for cars, and they also had over a dozen semi trucks. Plus a deck for passenger cabins. I was blown away by it. And the ferry departed right on time. Sarah had booked a cabin, and she went to take a nap, and I wandered around the various decks taking the last pictures of the South Island and the first ones of the North Island. Had breakfast, watched a bit of the Adventures of TinTin (the ferry had a small theater!) The outside was extremely windy , but it was a sunny day. Around 10 we got the warning that we were getting ready to dock, then at like 10:30 we were arriving. We were in Wellington before 11:30. We sat at the ferry terminal for a while as the shuttle to the rental car place was late, but eventually we were off, and we picked up our North Island car. At the moment, I prefer the first car we had - this one seems to hate accelerating. but it is smaller! so perfect for the major cities. We used it to drive to Cuba St in Wellington, where there's tons of food and shopping. The Wellington Chocolate factory for chocolate husk tea (I felt meh about it, but their ACTUAL chocolate was amazing.) We found a book at a bookstore - except we didn't find it. We had asked for help from someone, she couldn't find it, she got her manager, and this dude floats in plucks the book from like thin air and presents it to us. It was crazy. Then we went to our airbnb, dropped off our luggage, then went back to town (we're kinda outside it.) Rode the cable car visited the botanical gardens. Had dinner. and then came back to chill. The weather is looking bad tomorrow, so we'll be inside doing things most of the day, but it'll be fun. No pictures tonight - I have quite a lot, but I don't want to spend the time right now. Maybe tomorrow when we get stuck inside.