September 30th to October 3rd

I woke up the morning of the 30^th really regretting getting that Indian food.  It was very late and I was not sure what I was going to do.  I ended up going up to the art gallery around 2 o’clock.  The gallery had an incredibly wide range of paintings from Traditional Maori art to some English white guy’s painting of his eel fishing boat.  I had sushi for the first time since I left Vancouver and it was great.  That was the longest withdraw I had ever had.  I picked up the food and went to the grocery store up the street in the mall.  The lime scooters are great other than the fact that they don’t have lights on them.  I ended up almost getting thrown into the road when I didn’t see the gravel some construction workers laid down.  The following morning, I was up at 6 o’clock getting ready for the bus.  My roommates were very excited to see that I was waking them up for a second time in two days looking for my underwear.  I took the bus from Christchurch up to Picton.  The bus ride had a good mix of backpackers and people that would sprint off at every stop to have a cigarette.  The countryside was absolutely beautiful and completely covered with sheep.  I’m surprised they don’t run the country since it is every sheep’s dream to wool the world.  Good I got that out of the way; let’s get back down to business.  I arrived in Picton during some torrential downpour.  I booked my hostel a bit more than a kilometer from the station.  I busted into the hostel and the lady at the front desk asked me if it was raining.  The town was incredibly beautiful.  Picton is the town on the South Island where the ferry leaves to Wellington on the North Island.  It is the only connection between the islands other that by plane.  It gave me the feeling of Nelson, being on the water, surrounded by big mountains and the little coffee shops.  The following day I headed out on a trip up to the Queen Charlotte track.  The boat dropped us off at the very end of the track and picked us up at the fist hut along the way.  The Track is about 70 kilometres and we were able to do 18 of them.  The scenery was absolutely incredible.  The Queen Charlotte inlet alone covers 20% of New Zealand’s coastline.  The only issue I had on the hike was that I didn’t think to bring a water bottle on an 18-kilometer hike.  This meant that I had to sip some water that tasted like dirt from the streams.  When I did it the last time when I bent over, I tore my pants open.  It was just a mix of good things happening.  It ended up not being too noticeable as it was in between my legs.  But I can definitely say that I felt the rip.  I got on the boat on the way back thinking the floating old folks’ home had sunk.  They were all very excited to see the dolphins surfacing.  When I got back, I took a nap before the rugby games of the night.  I am really glad I stayed up until 1 in the morning watching the All Blacks vs Canada game.  For anyone that didn’t watch it the All Blacks won 63-0.  A real barn burner.  This morning I went for my final walk in Picton.  The bus to Nelson (New Zealand) was incredible passing through some huge mountains.  In Nelson I went on a walk to the first-place rugby was ever played in New Zealand.  My accommodation seems more like a daycare than a hostel.  Not too sure what the deal with that is but the people are nice.  Hope everyone is doing well.

Beckett