I am notoriously lazy. I will spend large amounts of time at home; in bed, on the couch, in other people's beds, on the floor, essentially anywhere within the confines of my flats four walls in order to feel comfortable. I hate being pressured to do things - the more you bug me to do it, the more I'll resist (hi dad - I know, I'm working on it). And recently, I've been horrendously sick. All factors that should (and almost did) prevent me from doing anything particularly interesting or noteworthy with my time.
However, I have some amazing best friends. Despite my best protests, Soph and Meg badgered me to come "on an adventure" with them this afternoon, and after realizing that the alternative way to spend my day was cleaning my room, I happily caved and agreed to join them.
At about 12:45pm, after bandying around ideas for the better part of an hour, we settled on a ferry trip to Days Bay, just across Wellington Harbour. Following a quick check of ferry departure times, we cobbled together a couple of pizzas and half a block of chocolate, then took off at an impressive pace towards Queens Wharf with our makeshift picnic safely packed away. Grabbing our tickets and shuffling onboard, we quickly commandeered a couple of benches on the upper deck, and settled in for a scenic, yet freezing, ride across the harbour.
[I should mention here that, on a whim, I decided I would attempt to film todays adventure, and try to throw it together into a wee montage of memories. I will link the finished product below, however as I chose to forego cleaning my room in order to participate in todays outing, I was without my camera, so video quality is predictably terrible. You've been warned.]
After an enjoyable ferry ride that was over far too soon (all three of us were in agreement that it felt amazing to be out on the water again), we docked at Days Bay and disembarked to find a picturesque pebble beach that begged to play host to an impromptu picnic. We made ourselves at home, nestling down amongst some driftwood and wolfing down our pizzas. Sophie and I, rather foolishly I might add, decided to shuck our shoes and paddle along the beach, until the sand ran out and we were forced to retreat to the safety of the footpath. At which point Meg had a thorough giggle at us as we moaned and groaned our way over sharp stones and driftwood, and were then forced to walk barefoot all the way round into Eastbourne as we waited for our feet to dry.
Upon rounding the point into Eastbourne, we were faced with more of the beautiful beachfront houses that were visible from the moment we docked. Although these are all very much 'beachfront' properties, the native bush in this area has been beautifully preserved, and many of these light, airy homes are nestled snugly in amongst the trees. There was some definite home envy going on during our stroll along Eastbourne beach, that's for sure.
We had been planning initially to investigate the large, rickety looking pier at Eastbourne, that we'd spied while disembarking at Days Bay, however upon further investigation, it became apparent that it was closed to the public as it was considered a safety hazard (we actually only found this out after Soph climbed round some boards up onto the pier, and then realized that, actually yes, the whole thing was meant to be inaccessible, and we probably shouldn't be there).
So after that slightly disappointing slog we decided to head back to Days Bay to grab a coffee before catching our return ferry home. The sun was disappearing fairly quickly at this point and we were all starting to feel the chill, so were disappointed to find that the first coffee shop we came across was closed. We pressed on, and just as we were sure we would all freeze to death, we came across the Days Bay pavilion (also the home of their famous wood fired pizza), which we had previously mistaken for a school! Thankfully, they sold hot drinks and no algebra was necessary to get them, so it was a banana milkshake for me and two hot chocolates for the girls (which Soph promptly declared to be the best she'd ever had). Then we ambled over to the waterfront and settled in to watch the sunset while we waited for our ferry.
After about five minutes, we spotted our vessel on the horizon and realized that in our haste to get warm, we'd made it back in time for the preceding ferry as well. Cue a bit of um-ing and ah-ing over whether to catch this one, and just as we'd got our butts into gear, they took off again (the Dom Post Ferry waits for no man - or woman. Or anyone really, they were pretty unforgiving). What followed was half an hour of attempting to entertain ourselves whilst not freezing to death - a difficult task involving plentiful selfies, a short dance break, and one instance of Meg almost ending up in the water (courtesy of Soph of course - I said pretend to push her!!).
Unfortunately, our 4:55pm ferry was on time, and with its arrival it was time to say our goodbyes to the wonderful settlement of Days Bay. It's not often that you find such gems when you live in such a busy city, and I know we were all incredibly grateful to get away from the hustle and bustle for an afternoon. Our final view was of the coastline bathed in a golden sunset glow, that made for a beautiful (if absolutely freezing) ferry ride home. Thanks go to Sophie and Meg of course, without whom I would likely have spent my day stuck inside, finding any excuse possible not to clean my room and generally being massively unproductive. Days like today remind me why I enjoy traveling (whatever distances I cover), and what I have to look forward to come December.
Until next time, stay sweet!
Briana xx
(for some reason the video wouldn't embed but here you go!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw9X18JSNMc
A great read - sounds like fun!
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