Scenic Alerts

I was right about the ferry crossing. We were handed some free bars of chocolate on checking-in, and two of the crew were giving out free Christmas cake to everyone on boarding, but other than that the festive experience wasn't at all in your face. Driving up to Hamilton the only sign that the day was a bit different from the usual was the fact that everywhere, bar the petrol stations, was closed and the townships eerily quiet. So it was a good choice for us as a day of travelling to get back north again as there wasn't anything else to do. Fortunately travelling here involves being exposed to utterly gorgeous scenery pretty much all the time so a journey never seems wasted. Noi is on constant scenic alert as we wind our way along, ever ready to grab a snap.

It's a measure of the plenitude of the picturesque in these parts that on our way to the ferry yesterday morning we actually avoided a 'scenic route' as we were rushing to check-in on time. Our travelling companion affectionately known as Tomtom, our omniscient GPS, unaccountably decided to go silent on the road out of Nelson. We knew there was a short route to the ferry of around 60 km but couldn't find it due to his silence and had to take the well-signed main highway, which winds around the coast for something like 130 km and we only had an hour and a half or so to do it. It was white knuckle driving all the way, I can tell you. The strange thing was that a lady at our motel had talked about avoiding a scenic route to get to the ferry terminal at Picton on time. We all thought we were on that route given the beauty of the views from the road (though, to be honest, in the stress of getting to the ferry on time I hardly noticed these.) Then, two thirds of the way along, we reached a branch on the highway that sent drivers off on the actual scenic route she'd been talking about. I didn't take it, and we can only imagine how improbably gorgeous it must have been.