Doing Well In Wellington

I have now traveled all the way to the southern most point of North Island to the capitol of New Zealand, Wellington.  Wellington is a bit like San Francisco and the harbor like the South of France.  It has a lot more character than Auckland.  I stayed in the Cuba area, which is a street with lots of restaurants and shops and part of it is sealed off to make a pedestrian mall.  

There is an active promenade area with parks, shops, museums and restaurants by the water.  You can see a little bungy jumping ride set up for kids.  I think bungy jumping was invented here. 
I spent time by the harbor and then took the cable car up to the top of the hill.  There is a botanical garden there and then I walked to a beautiful rose garden. 
 I walked down the hill and got a little lost.  I stumble upon a youth hostel and the kids there were making Christmas ornaments from egg cartons.  There are so many young people here from all over the world traveling.   In fact, any where you go, their is a good chance the people serving you are from another country.  New Zealand has a very liberal work program for traveling young. 

The next day it was on to Picton.  Picton is the most northerly town on the South Island.  I had to catch the car ferry between the two Islands.  It left at 8:30 AM and arrived at around 11:30.  I enjoyed my short time at sea and forget how much I loved sailing.  You pull your car right up and get on the ship.  Getting off was easy too.  I then drove up to Nelson and stayed overnight.  It rained pretty hard and the weather did not look promising.