Day 12 • Kaiteriteri - Picton - Wellington

Goodbye South Island! Our time on the South Island ended today with a ferry trip from Picton to Wellington, after driving approximately 3,100 kilometers. After a three-hour drive, we arrived at the ferry terminal where we dropped off our car. The ferry trip from Picton to Wellington takes you through the Marlborough Sounds, so it was nice to explore another fjord. Fortunately, Cyclone Gita has not reached New Zealand yet, so we had a calm sea and arrived in Wellington in just over three hours. In Wellington, we picked up our new car and I took two photos right away. In hindsight, it turned out to be a good decision. We then headed to the hotel where a nice lady greeted us and gave us some advice regarding the arrival of Cyclone Gita. She advised us to close the windows, use the emergency phone in the hallway, and if necessary, go to the bathroom as it is an interior room. According to the latest reports, Cyclone Gita has been downgraded to a tropical storm and is expected to hit the northwest of the South Island the hardest. Thankfully, we are now away from that area. However, Wellington is not far and heavy rain and strong winds are expected tomorrow. As we planned to continue our journey north to Wanganui tomorrow, we are keeping an eye on the news. Now, back to the car. It seems the previous driver had a little mishap. The car has a significant paint damage on the driver's side. So we had to go back to the harbor and report it to AVIS. The counter was already closed, but there was still an employee behind the bars. He was kind enough to assist us when we mentioned the photo on the camera. He signed our documents and reported the damage. Hopefully, this matter is now resolved for us. There was not much time left to explore the city after this incident. We decided to take a short ride on the Cable Car up the 120 meters to the Kelburn neighborhood. From there, we had a decent view of the city. We then drove up to Mount Victoria to get a panoramic view and took some quick photos. Now, we are reading the news to see what tomorrow's weather will be like.