Road trip South Island Part 1

On December 16th, we set off early in the morning by car to Wellington. We had packed the night before, and since we would be traveling for quite a while, the car was almost bursting at the seams.
Upon arriving in Wellington, we took the Wellington Cable Car up a mountain in the evening and enjoyed the view. The night was quite an adventure as we spent it in the car at a hiking parking lot with heavy rain pouring down. The next morning, we had to be at the ferry terminal by 5:15 AM to check in, and with a slight delay due to strong winds, we set off a bit later towards Picton.
When we arrived, the weather was really nice and very warm, and we decided to head straight to Abel Tasman National Park. Unfortunately, we only realized at the campsite that we had packed the wrong tent, as it unfortunately had no tent roof.
So, we drove back to the nearest town and bought a new tent there.
The three days at Abel Tasman National Park were very nice; we took some walks and also made a day trip to Wharariki Beach. That is the beach you can also see on the Windows background.
We then continued to Hokitika, with a stop in Westport at a seal colony. In Hokitika, we picked up Anja, and we were finally all reunited🤗.
We then visited the Hokitika Gorge, with incredibly blue water, and one evening we saw a lot of glowworms. Moreover, we visited an aquarium where we saw Kiwis and were allowed to feed eels.
Over Christmas, we went to Fox Glacier, and even though the weather was not always great, it was a very special experience to celebrate Christmas in summer and to see glaciers up close. We did two hikes to glacier lookouts, one of which was five hours long! And in the evening, we were at Lake Matheson.