30 December 2024

This morning, we started out at the Thunderbird Café, where I had French Toast without cream and lemon honey ginger tea. I would really like something healthy like porridge, but nowhere seems to have anything like that.

The Thunderbird café is themed around Texan/Mexican style, but does acknowledge people like us with a Thunderbird Four, Matchbox Virgil, Burger King Bobble Head Virgil, and a Thunderbird One on the till; plus a row of the set of DVDs on a top shelf. Unfortunately, it no longer offers tasty treats like Penelope’s Pancake Stacks or Big Brains Breakfast.

More of a Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons vibe than Thunderbirds

Because of this theme, I’ve assumed that the background music was of a similar genre, but it was while we were eating that Pen said: “That sounds like the beginning of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy theme.” (For those of you who don’t know the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy theme was originally a BBC sci-fi/comedy radio series; before its script writer, Douglas Adams, wrote the accompanying five-part book trilogy, and it got made into a TV series and then Hollywooded into a movie. It’s where you learn the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything… But you don’t learn the question.) It’s been years since I heard the theme, but I realised she was right. We also realised that it not only sounded like the theme tune, it WAS the theme tune. So what that had to Texas or Mexico I’ve got no idea.

And I’ve decided that, even though I think it’s a stupid idea, if we’re going out for breakfast, I’m going to clean my teeth before we leave. That way, if we don’t come back, at least my teeth will have been cleaned once in the morning.

There are some things that we would have liked to have done in Wellington. Seeing Wētā Workshop’s Thunderbirds are Go display was one, but they don’t have it anymore. Some of their Thunderbirds (or maybe Thunderbirds are Go) models are on display at the Roxy Cinema, but that would have involved a roughly ¾ hour bus trip and fretting about whether or not we were going to get back in time for our ferry.

So we went for a ride instead.

Firstly, I showed Pen the statue of John Plimmer and his dog. (Since she’s a dog person.) We then walked 100 metres along the same street to the cable car. Okay, so it’s actually a funicular and not a cable car, but everyone knows it as such, and you can’t really go to Wellington without having a ride on it. So we enjoyed the trip to the top and then got photos of it heading back down the hill again.

I think the tunnel lights are a new thing.

And then I saw a sign leading to the Begonia House. Now, Wellington’s Begonia House has been in the news a lot lately. It was built in the 1960s, is a much loved feature of Wellington’s Botanic Garden, and because it’s “earthquake prone” (which I insist is the wrong phrasing as it’s not prone to earthquakes, it’s prone to falling down in them) and the Wellington City Council can’t afford the repairs, is going to be pulled down… Except it’s not.

Whatever, we had a very enjoyable wander downhill through the bush track – listening to the bird song including what I think was the cry of a kākā in flight – saw some interesting plants, patted a very friendly cat, and just had a relaxing, pleasurable walk… Until it was time to head back to the hotel for our gear and we had to walk back up the hill to use our return journey tickets on the cable car, having to leave about six minutes before we reached the Begonia House. So that’s one thing we haven’t seen.

We did check out a neighbouring souvenir shop that was offering a free gift of some paua chips and had some very nice trinkets, but there was nothing we needed to get. Unlike the stop off at the Woolworths supermarket next door, where we bought our lunch. (Ciabatta bun, lemon honey and ginger juice, and some banana chips to snack on.)

Whereas our walk around the Botanic Gardens had been in near perfect conditions, we emerged into light rain. We couldn’t have timed it better.

Back to the hotel, got our bags, and over the road to the Bluebridge ferry terminal.

I’m always astonished that the Bluebridge terminal is pretty much in the centre of town, within cooee of the railway station and parliament’s grounds, whereas you have to travel a bit further to get to the State run InterIslander.

Booking in is not dissimilar to booking in on a flight. You hand in your bags, they get weighed and put on a conveyor belt/set of rollers that whisk them away to somewhere safe, you wait in the boarding area, and then you have to walk to your vessel. In this case a ship that has loaded up with auto carriers of cars and a whole lot of vehicles towing mainly caravans. There must be an exact science into loading up.

Once we were on the ship proper, we had to walk through the vehicle storage bay and then climb several flights of stairs. I said to Pen to keep an eye out for (George) Mallory, the man who disappeared attempting to climb Mt Everest before Sir Edmond Hillary.

We emerged onto the deck with the café and bar and found ourselves a seat.

Taken the day before

Despite Wellington’s reputation of being a windy city, and being grey and dismal when we left, it was a smooth sailing. I ate my ciabatta and some of my banana chips. They’re good. They’ve got just enough sweetness to give you a boost, but (I hope) also have some healthy qualities.

Close to where we were sitting, the café was offering a snack-sized “cauliflower bites”. Deep fried cauliflower with two dipping sauces. This didn’t sound as unhealthy as chips, so I bought some. What was delivered to my chair was enough for a meal, rather than a snack, and genuinely deep fried. It was presented on a dinner plate, with a small deep fryer basket filled with cauliflower resting on a red and white gingham bit of greaseproof paper that wasn’t as useful as a serviette, and surrounded by even more cauliflower. I ate most of these and attempted the basket, but gave up. Pen didn’t want any, so, unfortunately, they will have gone into the food scraps bin… I hope.

And that was after I’d eaten a fear swag off the plate!

Pen and I spent a bit of time on the deck as we sailed across the Cook Strait, through Queen Charlotte Sound, to Picton. And there were times when it was breezy enough that we needed to do Marcelle Marso impressions, and you could see white horses on the water, it barely affected the ship. There was a slight swell when we turned into Queen Charlotte Sound and was side on to the wind, but nothing really noticeable. The Strait has the reputation of being one of the roughest stretches of water in the world, but it was kind to us today.

It was grey and overcast, with patches of sunlight, as we chugged down through Queen Charlotte Sound. And chugging was what we did. Just a continuous hum of the engines with barely a variation to their tone until we were getting close to land. Apparently, we were supposed to travel on the southern side of an island through the Marlborough Sounds, but travelled north of it, which extended our trip somewhat.

But that was okay. We moored without a hitch, waited for Thunderbird Two’s pod door to open so we could exit, were escorted onto a bus, welcomed to rainy Picton, and driven around to the ferry terminal, where we were able to collect our bags.

This astounded me a little bit, as we were off the boat as soon as the entrance hatch had been lowered, yet our bags were ready and waiting for us. Then I remembered that waiting patiently for the hatch to lower and then the first thing off the boat, was a BlueBridge liveried truck. It would have been carrying our bags. Once we’d claimed our bags, we wrestled them back onto the bus and the driver did a little bit of a Tiki Tour to drop people off to where they were going. He didn’t know our establishment – the Picton House B&B, but knew the street (it’s a pretty main thoroughfare, maybe even the State Highway) and Pen was able to point it out to him and we were dropped off right over the road.

Having wished our driver a happy Hogmanay (he was Scottish), we wheeled our bags over the road, dragged them up the steps to the house, and signed in. Our host’s name is Carole (I don’t know why I feel the need to put an E on her name, but I do), and she was nattering away to give us all the details we needed. But she couldn’t catch Pen’s name when Pen repeated it several times. In the end I had to say it, and, finally, with my Kiwi accent and even through my mask she got who we were. (I don’t know how many others she was expecting at about 6.00pm at night.)

This is one of those places which are called a B&B, but only offer a B. And our B was in Unit One of the Anglesea Motel next door. Once again, it’s comfortable enough, but the WiFi is lousy. Carol(e) admitted as much, as the walls are concrete block, so she said that we could sit on her porch and use her office WiFi. When I attempted that after dinner, that WiFi started out good and then dropped out. So I’ve dropped all plans to post my blogs daily. At least there’s no chance of anyone hacking into our devices.

I was happily typing my blog when I suddenly looked at my laptop’s clock. 7.11pm. Surely not! But it was. So we decided to give up on our blogging and find somewhere to eat, since we wouldn’t know our way around in the dark.

Carol(e) had recommended the two places over the road for meals and had recommended booking in for our New Year’s meal. Both restaurants looked very nice (one being the Picton Sailing Club), but they also looked very expensive and beyond our present dress code. So we went to on to another place she recommended, which was not only quite expensive, it was packed. And sold out for New Year’s. The next option was an Irish Bar, which I found too cramped and noisy, so we ordered fish and chips from a chippy.

Whilst Pen waited for our order, I took our Bundaberg fizzy drinks back to the unit and went over the road to the restaurant to see if we could book in for tomorrow. The restaurant was closed and, when I finally saw someone, was booked out for New Year’s. But she suggested a place called Scuzzi, which did wood fired pizza, but also offered a dine in experience. Later, when I was sitting on the porch trying to find out what was going on in the world via my laptop, I did manage to check out the web site and (hopefully), book us a table for 7.00pm.

We had our fish/chicken burger (me) and chips at the unit, listening to a Don Snow’s History Podcast on Christmas customs, and then tried to write our blogs. My photos were taking so log to download, that I started playing a Jacquie Lawson advent calendar game. That was a mistake as I did really well in it and didn’t want to finish until I’d lost. And I even managed to score three Santas when I’ve never scored one before.

Walking = 14,943 steps

Kilometres (not by boat) = 10.3