Our South Island Adventure Day Ten

Whereby we pack up and leave our camp with a huge sigh of relief … and return to the mainland with an even bigger sigh of relief. But more about that later.

Since we had half a day to fill in before our ferry left, we decided to do the remaining short walk we had not yet managed to fit in. This was out to Wohlers Monument, the first European missionary to these islands. Again, what a formidable task he and his wife (whom he married after he came out here from Germany) had before them.




  
 I think we can now safely claim to have walked almost all the sealed roads and unsealed roads on this island. Not to mention a few tracks.



We ended our holiday on Stewart Island with a lovely lunch at the café at the South Sea Hotel. Some of the meals we have bought in some of the smaller towns we have visited over the past week have left something to be desired, but the food here was impressive.

Too soon it was time to board the ferry. I had been anxiously watching the wind and the waves and my fears were not ungrounded. I discovered that if I placed my feet a certain distance apart and kept my eyes focused on the carpet rather than the waves which often were higher than the ferry that I didn’t feel so bad. But I did look up at one stage and was amazed to see that the majority of passengers were suffering badly from seasickness. And I mean badly. Even DH looked a little green! (Although it turned out that was more from a fear that every time the crew passed him with a paper bag into which some poor passenger had deposited the contents of their stomach that said paper bag - and contents - was going to end up in his lap!)

The journey which was meant to take an hour took an hour and twenty. Apparently we changed course to go between some small islands in order to shelter us from the weather. If we were sheltered then I would hate to experience unsheltered. One of the crew told me as we disembarked that Foveaux Strait is one of the worst straits in the world to cross and I reckon that today we must have had one of the worst crossings. I was never so glad as when we docked at Bluff. And then to return to the cottage we stayed in a few nights ago and experience hot water, electricity, a comfortable bed, a roaring fire, and other essentials, was pure luxury.






O Lord, Thou has brought up my soul from the grave: Thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down into the pit. Psalm 30:3 (KJV)

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