i had a bad night's sleep only because the bed was crap. my back is killing me. we got on the shuttle to bluff and from there the ferry across the foveaux strait to oban, stewart island (rakiura). we ran into stephen from the kiwi bus again. he's taking the same ferry to stewart island but only staying for the day. the ferry was a 1 hour boring ride but it wasn't turbulent as it is notoriously known for being. from the wharf it was a very short shuttle ride to jo and andy's bed & breakfast, where we are staying for two nights. it's kind of a weird place. or it's more that we felt out of place. strange feelings perhaps stemming from that this is the first time we've stayed at a b&b. oddly enough, jo once lived in california a long time ago, even in twiddle thumbs's hometown. andy is an american as well.

at 2pm we did the underwater explorer cruise in a semi-submersible vessel. it was only 45 minutes and pretty boring but we did see a sea lion swimming. the vessel was a pretty cool concept. there were windows on both sides of you and you are underwater. much better views than a glass bottom boat.

on board the semi-submersible vessel

we took a walk around oban up a hill to observation rock and got a nice view of iona island. on our way down we decided to take another route down and went through the short little fuschia walk--bad idea, lots of bugs hovering around my head ever since! so we sprayed the bug repellant and that seemed to do the trick. i didn't really want an insect halo! when we got down to the wharf area, we bumped into stephen again and said our good-byes.

street mirror reminds me of japan

police station of halfmoon bay

iona island

giant chess board

upon returning from our walk, we read a little in the living room but it was just too awkward and ark in there so we went to "bed" early. so cold at night... i did manage to check email and my mom came through. she sent my new debit card to the hostel.