CROSSING COOK

Up very early(5:30am) because we got a slot on the first ferry to the South Island. The rain had stopped, but the wind still blew... So those of us proned to seasickness popped a pill and off we went to catch the Inter-island Ferry. This is not a small ferry, more like a working cruise ship with 7 decks, private suites for hire, 2 coffee shops, dining rooms,and padded recliner seats. It was all crowed as we boarded, but the 3 ladies managed to snag nice seats front row...bow.
The guys wanted to roam. This is
"normally" a 3 hr crossing. This word, normally has popped up a lot recently, and I will devote a whole section to it later. They say the first hr is relatively calm, the second hr is ROUGH, and the third hour calms down again. Well our crossing took 5 hrs... And in my humble opinion, only the last hour was tolerable. There were lots of barf bags available in strategic places, the workers passed out cups of chipped ice and with fortitude and medication, we all made it w/o too much stomach roiling. Footnote-1: the bow gets the brunt of the impact. Some men LOVE it the rougher the better! Footnote-2: the guys were not prone to seasickness, and the other
gals did fine without all the precautions. Motion sickness is my nemesis!
Because we missed a whole day waiting for the 30 ft swells to die down to the 12 ft ones we endured, we could not stay in the cute little town of Pictin, which is right at the S. Is ferry terminal. We were bummed, but as they say: carry on! we did stop for the musical restrooms, which Steve said were so clean and beautiful and as soon as one shut the door, one would
Have their own private concert! Also, coffee and "Guide" cookies were bought. A Guide is our equivalent to a Girl Scout.
We had a beautiful, but windy drive thru a variety of terrain, until we landed in the coastal town of Kaikoura...also known as the whaling capitol of NZ we got our spacious rooms at the "White Morph" motor Inn, had a "walkabout", ended up at the Whale Pub for steaks and brew... And conked out early!