Atlantis Backpackers

What an experience. Like how I would imagine Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds meets the Yellow Submarine. The rat warren like corridors of the Atlantis Backpackers are painted with murals of Atlantis and under sea adventures. This includes a Sponge Bob Square Pants scene to entertain you whilst you wash the dishes in the kitchen. The paintings are beautiful and the whimsy of the room names are right up there. We were in "flipper Bay" room.

I would suggest that the owner/manager, Sheara, invest in some new mattresses. Our mattress predated the bowling ball test and we were engulfed in the centre folds of the mattress making it difficult to get out of bed in the morning.


Earthquake at the Backpackers

Just after midnight we were aroused from our sagging mattress by a low rumble and I thought that maybe the airconditioning unit was acting up. We did some investigation and found that there had been a earthquake.

Read about it here.


We headed out after breakfast and made our way to Havelock. The view of the Picton Harbor from the road was amazing.

This wasn't the ship we arrived on but it's was similar. Three vehicle decks. It was interesting to watch the double tractor trailers head to the upper vehicle decks.

Here we are secreting our bikes on the ferry. The tractor trailers seemed huge.