Kayakers' road trip all washed up

ROSS GIBLIN/The Dominion Post

STALLED TRIP: Timaru students Tara Mulvany, left, Jesse Morgan and Mike Robertson wait to cross Cook Strait in Wellington.

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Their beat-up 1.5-litre van has just carted them 3000 kilometres on a North Island adventure road trip - but Wellington's fabled weather stopped it in its tracks.

Four Aoraki Polytechnic students have been living out of their wheels for the past fortnight as they kayaked 10 rivers.

But they were killing time in the Bluebridge ferry terminal yesterday after their morning sailing to Picton was cancelled because of atrocious weather and seven-metre swells.

Timaru student Mike Robertson, 19, and his outdoor recreation course classmates, Jesse Morgan, 19, Ben Nelson, 20, and Tara Mulvany, 19, had checked out Te Papa and been thrown out of a library "for sleeping".

However, they were determined to make the most of their enforced Wellington stopover.

Guitar at the ready, they were tucking into some supermarket munchies and awaiting the next available ferry - today's 3am sailing.

"We had holidays so we thought we'd get out of Timaru and come try and find some warmer water. Didn't quite happen," Mr Robertson admitted.

"It's not so bad. We've sort of learned over a couple of years to just deal with the weather because it deals with us quite a bit."

Mr Robertson said his old van had held up well on the trip, apart from a few alternator problems and the loss of its brake lights.

"But they kicked back in - and the brakes still worked," he said.

The students, due back at polytech today, would miss some classes.

Miss Mulvany was on her first visit to Wellington. Asked what she thought of it, she said: "Just like people have told me: cold, wet and windy."

- © Fairfax NZ News