Road Trip, Day 2

It's April 8th, which is Austin's birthday. He'll be 27. Wow. But since it's only yesterday in the States, I'll call him tomorrow on his birthday. Got that?

Today we would be taking a ferry from the North Island to the South Island, which would take about 3 hours. We knew we would have to wake up early to get to the ferry on time, and last night we were worried about getting lost and missing the boat. We seem to have a propensity for that sort of Adventure. So we scouted out the ferry terminal location while we were driving around last night during our Adventure. Not surprisingly, we took a wrong turn and missed it, but we did see where it was and we did see where we should have turned. So this morning when we drove there, we did it right! No Adventures. Hurray! Oddly, we also got stopped at a police checkpoint, looking for drunk drivers ... at 7:00 in the morning!

This morning as I was getting dressed, I made an unfortunate discovery: I had forgotten to bring a hairbrush. Honestly, I must be getting Alzheimers. The last time I had forgotten to pack a brush was when I flew to America for my dad's funeral, but at least I had a good excuse that time. This time I was just plain dumb. I would have borrowed a brush from Erica but she doesn't brush her hair; it's really curly and she finger-dries it. Curt and Nolan don't use combs or brushes or anything. So I was pretty much S.O.L for the time being. Not to mention the fact that Nolan would now have 2 things to tease me about - forgetting shoes and forgetting a hairbrush. I've been making this WAY too easy for him to make fun of me.

Meanwhile, it was a sunshiney day and a beautiful sailing from the North Island to the South Island. Actually, the Cook Strait could be a treacherous crossing at times. There was a famous ferry that sunk about 40 years ago and 51 people died. It's not exactly the Titanic, but nonetheless it is New Zealand's great maritime disaster (#4 Son would like it; he was obsessed with the Titanic for years). I tried not to think about the capsized "Wahine" as I looked out at the innocent blue water sparkling in the morning sun.

On the ferry, we'd scored 2 nice soft couches and since we had 3 hours to kill, we decided to play a game of Scrabble. I ended up winning which is a little unusual but not totally surprising. However Curt came in 4th place out of 4 people and that's NEVER happened. Perhaps he's getting Alzheimers now, too. After Scrabble, Curt, Nolan, and Erica wanted to play Hearts. But Nolan and Erica had forgotten to bring the deck of cards. Hah. I'm not the only one who forgets things. Anyway, Curt bought a deck of genuine InterIslander Ferry cards so they could play Hearts. Strangely, there seemed to be a marked card and it was - of all things - the Queen of Spades. Anyway, Erica led for 90% of the game, then lost dramatically at the end to Curt. I think he was trying to reestablish his gaming superiority after being Buck-Naked-Last in Scrabble earlier.

Once we got back on the mainland, we drove an hour or so to a winery called Forrest Estates. The area outside Blenheim is one of New Zealand's premier wine countries, so there were wineries everywhere. I picked this winery because Nolan's middle name is Forrest, and because they had a sculpture garden and a resident artist! We sat at a patio table in the sunshine and Curt, Nolan, and Erica tasted all 15 varieties. Eventually we bought 6 bottles between us. And we walked around their property, admiring the sculptures and soaking up the surroundings. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.

The Designated Driver (me) drove the next 1.5 hours along a picturesque coastal road. Nobody was carsick yet, knock on wood. We managed to stop at Ohau Point to look at a seal colony. Most of the older seals were really fat and lazy, but a few young ones were goofing around. They sure looked like they had a pretty good life laying there on the rocks, mostly sleeping away the day. I could get used to a life like that. Except for the part about getting eaten by orcas.

I drove on to our destination, Kaikoura, and found the hotel without getting lost, which is always worth mentioning. Kaikoura is a little seaside town famous for its dolphins and its crayfish. We walked around a bit, bought a hairbrush for The Forgetful One, sat on a beach, and listened to the surf. The surf sounded quite different here because it was a rocky, pebbly beach and water has a different sound when tumbling over rocks. Curt and Nolan threw rocks into the ocean and tried to skip rocks until they each threw their shoulders out. Later, we found a little seafood place to go for dinner. Mmmm. They served huge portions and we all ate too much. It was great.

After dinner we had another Adventure, scoping out tomorrow's dolphin destination. We drove all over Kaikoura before we finally found it, only a few hundred meters from our hotel. Nolan and Erica were beginning to tire of all these Adventures, I think.