Ferry and Tranzscenic Train From Wellington To Kaikoura

Yesterday was amazing.

We took the ferry from Wellington at the southern end of the North Island to Picton, at the northern tip of the South Island. The trip takes about 3 1/2 hours, and is rated one of the more beautiful ferry rides in the world. I would have to concur. The water is always either dark aquamarine in the channel, to light turquoise near shore.

Once we landed, we took a taxi and our luggage to the train station where we boarded the New Zealand TranzScenic train from Picton to Kaikoura. The train runs along the water, so you have mountains on one side, and the Pacific on the other. And fields of wild flowers (yellow lupens, scotch broom, and poppies), and rivers. And tunnels (23) and sheep with their baby lambs. After 3 1/2 hours we stopped at Kaikoura, which bills itself as The Place Where the Mountains Meet the Sea. Again...wow! It's hard to imagine palm tree fringed ocean and snow covered mountains existing in the same place, but they do at Kaikoura.

The day before we left I somehow threw out my back, which was is constant spasm, despite all kinds of muscle relaxants and pain pills, for 24 hours. I was scared to death that I wouldnt be able to get out of bed at the hostel and get on the ferry. Somehow, some way I was able to make both trips before the spasm started again (and even take pictures from the Observation Car of the train ...am empty car with guard rails for people who want to capture the amazing view on film). We got to our hostel, and our room, which turned out to be about 8X8 feet, no joke. When I tried to get up this AM (sad to say the spasm had returned) there was no place to put my feet, so it took about 5 minutes of maneuvering to finally stand up.