WELLINGTON TO BLENHEIM
Since Wellington is on the bottom of New Zealand's North Island and Blenheim is about 30 km down the coast of the South Island, a ferry ride is in order.
We get up early and cycle to the Ferry Terminal. It's certainly not as flashy and squeaky clean as BC Ferries, but it certainly gets the job done. This ferry also ferries trains from Island to Island and the train deck is where the bikes are stored. So we get our bikes lashed to the hold and upstairs we go for our 3.5 hour ride to the South.
We had an interesting ride. There were two super big flat screen television sets in the main lounge but non of them were offering any Olympic coverage and we knew that the women's SnowBoard Cross was happening at that very moment back home. Andy is twitching in his seat as a cooking show is being presented.
He asks the women at the coffee machine if it is possible to change channels. She makes some calls and learns that the network carrying this coverage (PRIME) is not available on those monitors.
Unrelenting, he moves around the ship looking for any other television sets, and he finds a small one. He searches through the channels available and finds coverage. So we sit and watch it live. SnowBoard Cross is a pretty exciting event as as the athletes were being disqualified and the medal run was looming nearer and Canada's hopes were looking better, more and more people gathered around this tv set with us.
It was great fun, and Canada won gold and the both of us were great Canadian ambassadors on the ferry to South Island that day.
On that note: When travelling a long way from home, usually you lose track of your home country and city. Once in a while, maybe, you will hear on the news or read in the paper of an event from your home country or city. This vacation is quite a bit different that that. Walking around the towns and cities on our travels - glancing at all the big screen televisions that are around these days - results in images of our home city almost constantly. There is certainly mixed feelings that result - and even some home-sickness.
The money shots from Vancouver are looking great from here.
STATS:
Distance: 34.1 km
Time: 1:41
Average: 20.1 kph
Max: 57.8 kph
Temp: 18 - 26C
Weather: Mostly Cloudy
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