It’s true, our first little celebration. The North Island has been officially skated, right up to the departure gates of the ferry. Tomorrow we’ll be embarking on the second portion of the New Zealand skate, starting by zipping across open ocean to arrive in Picton, a town on the Northern point of the South Island. After that we head down more winding highway, through seal guarded roads and along dolphin filled coasts. We’re told the north pales in comparison to the south’s epic landscapes…not gonna lie, pretty stoked.

            It wasn’t an easy trek to the ferry though, not by any means. We got lost again, separated from our support vehicle. This time it was our fault, because neither Rob nor I remembered to bring our cell-phones, and skating into a big city like Wellington is always complicated. So after another stint of waiting and hoping the dudes in the car would find us, we figured it was best to just buy a map and head for the destination.

            The funniest part was that AC/DC was playing a capacity show to 90,000 fans in Wellington that day and the town was overrun with hilariousness. There were fans everywhere going insane in preparation for the big show, so no matter where we were loads of people constantly advised us to “Rock ON!!!” That’s a nice welcome to a town. Plus, the Skate Gods smiled on us that day and provided us with reasonable and consistent asphalt for the first time, which made the last 49 KMs really fun.

            Oh man, I have to interrupt myself. I’m sitting with Rob in a café writing this blog, and some guy just pushed the newspaper at us saying “That’s you guys isn’t it?” I look at the article and indeed it is. During our first day of relaxation yesterday we did a quick interview and photo shoot for the local paper. The journalist was really interested and the photographer was super sweet. Only problem was he didn’t quite get the concept of riding a deck. He kept telling us to do weird poses that looked ridiculous despite our repeated explanations that skating isn’t at all similar to figure skating.

Finally we quietly agreed to do a pose that was clearly not authentic just for jokes. And obviously, as the paper is slid over the table toward me I have to crack up because out of the dozens of realistic photos taken, that’s the one he used. Haha, all publicity is good publicity right?

Anywayssss. We’re off to find out how much it costs to get Lucy across on the ferry and finish some last minute prep for the South Island. Maybe we’ll ball out and buy a water-proof tent… who am I kidding, that would be way to decadent. See you on Sunday for the 3^rd video blog!

Stay cool kids.

Daniel + The S4C Team