TA Day 60: Sunday 16 February 2025

Schoolhouse Bay Campsite - Ship Cove

Last day on the South Island! Crazy!

We woke up early, the first alarm rang already at five in the morning. We managed to get up fairly quickly and got going before the sunrise. We barely saw anything when we started hiking, so we started walking with red headlamps.

As we walked in the jungle-like forest, the sky was slowly turning pink above us. It got more cloudy though so we never saw the actual sunrise but it was still a pretty morning. Up at the saddle we stopped for a break, and to film a video with our Uview.

When we just finished up, another hiker showed up! Apparently it was another NOBO, Peer, whose name we had seen in the hut books ahead of us since the start. We also saw him briefly the day before but didn't know that he was another TA hiker then.

On our way down from the saddle, the last part before Ship Cove, we talked to Lukas parents. Down at Ship Cove we looked at Captain Cook's Monument, and then mostly waited. Some rain fell on us, and some boats came and went, dropping people off. But our boat was not coming. Peers boat came, and it was just as left.

We went out on the pier and waited. Finally, when we had almost started to worry, the boat showed up. After picking some more people up, they informed us that they had heard about a group of dolphins being nearby and headed in that direction, and luckily we got to see them! And so close too, swimming with the boat! We also got to see a seal.

After arriving in Picton we couldn't decide on food so we decided to split up. Lukas went for kebab and Kim had pizza. Then we met up again for some geocaching.

We actually met another couple of geocachers while we were geocaching which was fun. We talked to them for some time.

Then it was time for a quick ice cream before going to the ferry (and yes, tickets sorted itself out before, but no money back yet, which we wrote about yesterday).

We went to Scopa for the ice cream and were really disappointed. The room was small, empty and white. The whole place felt more like a hospital room than a place that sold ice cream. They didn't really sell any interesting types of ice cream, just "regular scoops" which was a bit disappointing too. But we got two scoops with some chocolate sauce on top. It was quite difficult to choose flavours because they were all written on a separate board on the wall, and none of the boxes of ice cream were labelled so you had to ask what was what. Then the girls working there were quite awkward and clearly summer stand-ins. The ice cream was decent. Nothing special, so we regretted not going to the other place.

Then on to the ferry. It was so warm, so we could actually sit outside for almost the entire time. The sunset was just amaaaazing so it was hard not to take a million photos of it.

We also took a photo of Kim's phone. The purple spot is growing, slowly but surely. Luckily slowly.

Once in Wellington, we had a funny encounter with an English couple were the guy was having a fun time thinking Lukas looked exactly like some famous person we didn't know about. He wasn't THAT much of a lookalike but there was some resemblance, sure. Still a funny encounter though :)

We took an Uber to our hostel and checked into our room... Which was very dirty, the floor wasn't even vacuumed. But we were too tired to tell anyone about it right away.

Lukas ran off to buy McDonald's and then we just ate quickly and went straight to bed.

Today's:

Distance: 5.86 km

Ascent: 226 m

Descent: 244 m

Tent nights: 40/60

Weather: Cloudy morning, a bit of a drizzle, then sunny and WARM afternoon