We got up early ready for the ferry to Picton on the South island and chatted to a girl from Edinburgh about the WWOOF scheme. When you sign up you get a thick guide book with the contact details of farms that are in the scheme and a bit of blurb about each one. The idea is that you work on their farm doing anything from mucking out horses, painting to rounding up sheep on quad bikes in exchange for food and board. As no money changes hands apparently you don’t even need a work visa. It certainly seems a good way to see the place, meet the locals and make your budget stretch further www.wwoof.org
Unfortunately the mist and fog was quite heavy for the crossing so we missed a lot of the views. We cut our losses and went into the onboard cinema and watched the Terminal, a Tom Hanks film about a guy who spends a year or so living in an airport terminal. Graham could certainly identify with him after his 3 day trip to get to New Zealand!
Picton is a very small town, fairly quiet and has some fantastic walks. We met up with a bonkers postman bloke from Birmingham or Manchester. After some walking into the bush in the afternoon we relaxed in the Jacuzzi with a couple of beers and then had a pizza for tea. It was quite chilly in the evening so we holed up in the warm TV room and watched US marshals before going to bed.