Take a shower, shine your shoes

The Queen Charlotte track is a no go.

In order to get to the track you have to take a water taxi from Picton. To walk the track you need to buy a $12 track pass, then $9 per person, per night for camping. Not too bad until you factor in the water taxi price of $90. We looked at how expensive it would be, plus food and decided we can't make the walk work. We were both really disapointed and I was having a bit of a hard time as we were walking by the Picton Water Taxi office. Looking at the prices I was reminded of a SNL skit featuring Obama addressing concerns held by the Chinese government in regards to the '$8billion loan. I wondered if the water taxi prices included dinner, because in the words of SNL, "I like to be bought dinner before someone makes sex to me". I muttered something to this effect as we left.

We spent the day walking around Picton, doing a few hours of day hikes on the other side of the sound from the Queen Charlotte. It was over 20 degrees, sunny with a little breeze and really an amazing day. After the walk we came back to the hostel, I finished my book, napped in a hammock for a while before we played some chess on one of those outdoor boards with the big figures and went for a bike ride around town. We borrowed a rugby ball and played in the park across from the hostel for a bit and ended up booking our ferry tickets (much larger boat, much further distance, less then half the price...) for Wellington tomorrow morning.

We are going to spend the day in Wellington, checking out the national museum and a world photojournalism exhibition and plan the next leg of our journey. If the weather is good and the water levels are low enough we will be headed to the Whanganui River paddle, if not we will head to the East coast, Napier and Gisborne and try to get to the other Great walk we attempted to start on.

Thats the plan for now, but as I'm learning that means very little. Who knows what will happen next.

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadisde, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming--'wow what a ride!'''' --Lucius Annaeus Seneca (courtesy of Ms. Mutton)