After almost 3 months, we are finally in the south island of New Zealand! We left Windy Welly on Tuesday & took the ferry from the north island to the south island. The ferry itself was quite large & rather posh with reclining cushy seats. However, the weather made our 3-hour ferry ride a little less than fun. I went outside to get some pictures at one point & almost got blown away. The scenery we passed along the way was so incredibly gorgeous though--massive green mountains surrounding us on all sides, with fog hovering just above the mountaintops. We arrived in Picton, a quaint town on the tip of the south island, and I couldn't help but think of Lord of The Rings as I looked around and saw all of the huge green mountains all around us. Sadly, the weather was just as crappy in Picton as it had been in Wellington, if not worse. So, our first day and a half in Picton was mostly spent inside our hostel watching movies, reading, and relaxing. We did manage to get some picture-taking done around the city though when the rain let up for a few hours, so that was good. The hostel was really nice and extremely clean, plus for $22 per night, you got free breakfast in the morning & free homemade dessert every evening. However, Sontsa & I have learned (the hard way) that many hostels in NZ are not heated, including this one. Yeahhh...it has been in the 30s and 40s here, so having no heat is pretty miserable. Everyone walks around the hostels with multiple layers of clothing, scarves, hats, and always a warm cup of tea or coffee in their hands haha. Oh, and you also go to sleep wearing just as much clothing. In the future, Sontsa & I are going to be much more careful about picking out our hostels; fully heated rooms will now be one of our requirements! For the next 3-4 weeks, we are only staying 1-3 nights in each town we visit in the south island, except for Queenstown where we plan to stay a bit longer. Picton was the first & we only stayed 2 nights there. Our second day there, we met a couple of cool Belgium guys, Gerome and Regis. The four of us went to the local Irish pub Wed night & hung out there for a couple of hours. An older local Kiwi guy came over & chatted with us for a bit as well. Plus, he gave us some free food! I should probably mention that In NZ, nothing is open past 7:00 pm except for McDonalds (that is if the town is big enough to have one--sad I know) & maybe one or two bars/pubs. So, when I keep talking about going to the pubs and bars in every town, trust me it's not to get sloshed; it's just that there is literally nothing else open. I wouldn't want my readers to think I'm off getting wasted every evening in NZ haha. Backpackers can barely afford to buy just one beer when going out, let alone multiple drinks! Before Sontsa & I left town the next day, we grabbed some hot chocolate/coffee with Gerome & Regis at a chill little coffee shop as well, then headed out. As it turned out, we could have hung out with them for a bit longer because our stupid bus was an hour and 15 minutes late! That's right...we were standing in the freezing cold at the bus stop for over an hour. Needless to say, we were not happy campers when the bus finally arrived. I must admit it can be pretty stressful having to rely on alternative forms of transportation & not having your own vehicle. Sontsa & I are hoping that we will save enough money from couchsurfing that we can get a rental car for the last 2 weeks of our trip around the south island. Crossing our fingers! Anyway, we took the bus 2 hours away to our next destination, a city called Nelson. Out of the last 4 cities we've visited, it was the first place with sunshine. I can't tell you how thrilled we were to see sunlight again after not having ANY for 7 days! The hostel we stayed at was called Paradiso & it was pretty awesome--free internet, free breakfast, free soup & fresh baked bread every evening at 6:00 pm, plus a sauna & jacuzzi. However, once again, no heat. No worries though...the hostel we've chosen for the next city is fully heated! We didn't actually spend a lot of time in Nelson itself during our 2 nights there because the first evening we arrived in town, we booked to be picked up the next morning at 7:00 am to go to Abel Tasman for the day! Like Cathedral Cove we saw in the north island, Abel Tasman in the south island is one of those locations that you always see on NZ postcards & advertisements. It is absolutely GORGEOUS! A lot of people kayak there, whereas many others go trekking. Depending on your level of expertise, you can do anything from a 4-hour, one-day hike to a full-on 3-day hike. Sontsa & I opted for the 4-hour hike =) A shuttle picked us up from our hostel early yesterday morning & drove us an hour away to Abel Tasman. From there, we were to take a water taxi ride to the drop-off point for our chosen trek. While waiting for our taxi to arrive, Sontsa pointed & said "Look who it is." It was a woman Celina from France who we had shared a room with in the Wellington hostel...smallest country in the world. Now, the interesting part of the water taxi ride was that you boarded the water taxi on land while it was actually on a trailer, attached to the back of a large tractor (New Zealanders like tractors, eh?). Our driver handed us life jackets to wear while we were sitting in the boat...on land. So, we all looked rather funny wearing life jackets in this boat, passing cars on the road while we drove toward the trailer put-in point in the water haha. After the tractor drove into the water and we were detached from the trailer, we were taken on a 20-minute water taxi ride to a part of the Abel Tasman coastline called Anchorage where we would begin our hike. The trek through the mountains was really beautiful with mini waterfalls, creeks & scenery that resembled a jungle or rainforest (minus the wildlife). Plus, the beaches we stopped off at were stunning! A couple of hours into our hike, we stopped for lunch (PB&J's of course) at one beach that was just breathtaking. I think every picture we took there basically looked photoshopped because the backgrounds were so perfect. It was so nice to just sit there in the sun for a while and look at the scenery though. We also did some climbing and jumping across these huge rocks that jutted out into the sea in order to get a better view of the beach =) It was a completely perfect day! We didn't get back to the hostel in Nelson until later in the evening, so we just ate some dinner, then chatted with one of our roommates, an American guy from California who is in NZ studying Geology for a semester. He said that 85% of the foreign students studying in Dunedin, NZ are Americans! I couldn't believe it. After talking to him for a while, Sontsa & I walked around town for a very short period of time before heading back to the hostel again--there wasn't too much to see & it was crazy cold outside. We got up really early again this morning to catch a 7:30 am bus to move on to the next city, Greymouth. Oh, just one more example of how small of a country NZ is, Sontsa & I keep running into this one guy all over the south island--we were at the same hostel together in Picton, saw him in Nelson, then again this morning at some tiny random town both of our separate buses happened to stop at for a coffee break. We don't actually know his name or where he's from, but we'll find out soon enough; I'm sure we'll see him again. Sontsa & I are considering making bets on who we will run into next, what town, etc. haha Cheers, Ash

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