Day 7 - Picton/Christchurch

We awoke early in the morning and departed for the ferry terminal, where we boarded immediately.  The ferry was pretty substantial, and the seas cooperative, so
we had a nice ride over, Jen tried to sleep, but the seats weren't particularly accomodating (the locals quickly took all the reclining chairs.)  They did have 
warm scones, though, I ended up getting the penultimate one, the lady behind me got the last one.  

Once we got off the ferry, we promptly ended up stuck at the worst intersection in Picton.  After some time there, we began our long (330+ km) south, much of which
ran along the scenic coast.  The southern island was significantly drier than the north, and all the ferns had disappeared, most of the terrain was golden grassland.
We stopped at Kaikoura briefly, and had a rather subpar lunch at the Craypot, and walked along the beach for a bit, which was composed almost completely of basalt
pebbles. We had originally planned to stop at a winery, but it closed relatively early and we were running behind, so we decided to visit it on the way out of
Christchurch instead.

We arrived in Christchurch around 6:30 pm; crossing the River Styx, which is apparently just outside town.  I have to say I was rather unimpressed. Our hotel was right 
outside of downtown, and was one of the few buildings on the edge of downtown that wasn't damaged, we headed south after arriving and checking in, and toured the ruins 
of the city, much of which was still awaiting demolition.  We met back up with Nick and Ashley after we had separated briefly.  We headed down the local indian restaurant
(Himalaya) which was quite good.  After two bottles of wine, we headed back to the hotel room to finish off the last of the beer we'd acquired yesterday.