Julia, a lady with a sleeping bag is coming to us. This should be a lot warmer than what Rowan has been using recently. She is incredibly nice and we try talk her into quiting her job and walking haha. I think we may have planted a seed. To get out of Dr Michaela’s way we plan to be out all day. She works from home so we have been trying to be unintrusive. We head off to Macpac and return the sleeping gear. It takes a while to get a park but eventually we find one. With time to kill I vote for Te Papa! Now it is a bit ridiculous but I haven’t been to Te Papa for 21 years. Well there is definitely some samesies, squid, quake shack, marae. But some very cool new stuff. The Gallipoli exhibition is incredible the sculptures done by Weta Workshop took 24,000 hours to make and you can tell. They have excruciatingly good detail. If you haven’t seen it please do!

I really wanted to break the glass and steal this!

We stayed a few hours and really enjoyed seeing it all. In the nature area I had a random fella come up to me. “Are you Kate & Rowan?” Haha we are now famous, this Danish guy had seen us on Facebook and recognised us. We chatted a long time. Back at Newtown and I start packing for tomorrow. The weather is average and there will be swells but no where near as bad as it was in other parts of the country.

We have a package of stuff to send to my dad passports etc. We head off to do that and then finish our packing. Gareth is dropping us off on his way to work which is great as the rain is non stop. We get down to the ferry terminal and there is a huge sign no new bookings until 21st February. Phew I am glad we booked a few days ago. We drop off our gear and go to subway for lunch. The ferry is running 45min behind but we are still to board at 1pm. We wait outside and a Imogen comes up to us. “Hey you are TA walkers?!” Yes we are. “I have seen you on Facebook.”

Oh we really are famous now haha. We chat to kill time it is a whole hour later before we get on the ferry. Finally on board it takes another hour before we set off. 2 hours late! I am glad I booked our holiday park. We have great long chats with Imogen she has done NOBO (North bound) to Waikanae and made the smart decision to turn around and walk back. North Island is not going to be doable for a long long time. The sea is not bad we go out the long way and swing back in so the passengers don’t get moved around as much. There are plenty of people feeling unwell but luckily the outside is open so we don’t have to see it or smell it.

Now in Picton we just need our bags then a short we kms to the Tasman Holiday Park. There is only just enough space in the tent area for us. It is rather cramped. But mostly because people have parked their cars next to their tents which isn’t very courteous. We set up and make dinner. It is dark by the time we eat. This is a small cramped campground but it has good facilities. They have a pizza oven so now I just need to convince Rowan to make his famous pizzas!