Today was a day to start exploring Wellington, so I took the bus into town and started by climbing one of the hills using the Wellington Cable Car. This is essentially a funicular which was rebuilt recently by the Swiss after the original one fell into a state of disrepair. The views from the top were spectacular, a great view of Wellington and the harbour.
It was really clear and sunny with a chill in the air and I thought to make the most of this, I�d walk down the hill through the Botanic Gardens. These were most pleasant with some interesting sculptures on the way including a cool sundial where you are the pointer (can�t remember what the correct word is!). The rose garden would have been very beautiful I�m sure, if any of the roses had been out, but this is the middle of winter!
At the bottom of the gardens is the old city cemetery which had been chopped in two by the motorway in the sixties. I had a look in the lists for any family names, but didn�t spot any.
The next place to go was the parliament area and I popped into the Backbencher pub for a spot of lunch. The walls are covered with caricatures of the different politicians and I�m sure I was probably surrounded by some of them, but I have not got a clue what any of them look like!
I joined the official tour of the parliament buildings and we were shown the earthquake foundations which were really interesting, isolating the whole building from the foundations. We sat in a Maori affairs select committee room, full of Maori carvings and wall coverings before we went into the parliamentary library which was in the gothic style and reminded me of the St.Pancras hotel in London.
So, not quite as impressive as Westminster, but then there are only 120 MPs. They have introduced an interesting voting system too where one has two votes, one for the local candidate, the other for a party vote. It�d take too long to explain how it all works here, but food for thought anyway.
I then went to the new St. Paul�s Cathedral which did nothing for me architecturally, being designed in the 1930s and the old St. Paul�s Cathedral which was wooden and gothic, much better! I also visited the National Archives to see the Waitangi Treaty and some other bits and bobs. They are kept in a vault and it was interesting to see a petition to gain women�s suffrage. New Zealand were the first country to give women the vote in 1893. Then, I caught the bus back, worn out after a long day of sightseeing!
In the morning Sally, the kids and I set off to some view points as it was another sunny, but cold day. The roads were really slippery and people I overheard later on were saying that they had never seen frost in Wellington before! There are no road gritters and at one point we saw a car hanging over a big drop with the owner looking rather bemused alongside.
We drove up to the Mount Victoria viewpoint where we could see across the otherside towards the airport and the reclaimed sections of land. The mountains form a border all the way around until the sea which really enhances the scene.
Next, we drove up to an even higher hill which has a wind turbine on top. It wasn�t windy enough for the turbine but it was still a great viewpoint. From here, Sally dropped me off in town and I went to have a look at the Civic Square, which was very nice and then I wondered around the Cuba Quarter. There are lots of cool shops down there, second hand record shops and groovy clothes. I found a little cafe-bar place for a spot of lunch called the Matterhorn, really nice food and coffee. I ended up staying for a bit there, just reading my book and chilling out!
The rest of the afternoon was just spent wandering around and soaking in the city. I have to say, I prefer it to Auckland so far!
Today I went in to town, but had to delay my departure as there were loads of traffics jams, why? Because there was a slight frost and lots of cars were skidding across the roads. I'd brought the coldest weather with me to Wellington!
At lunchtime I went to a public lecture by the controversial Bishop John Spong. Sure enough he was controversial and gave me plenty to think about. I may even write up my notes for the webpage (optional!) for those who were interested. For a lot of the lecture, I was being filmed for some reason, then afterwards I found out that I had sat between Lois, a former restaurant owner and chef on one side and the equivalent of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the other!
In the afternoon I went to Te papa which is the big museum of New Zealand. It's huge and really well done. You could spend days in there, especially if you got lost. I liked the Awesome Forces area which was all about earthquakes and volcanos. Cool! We should have a museum this good in the U.K. I never went to the Dome, but this is the kind of thing we should have done.
Following Te papa, I went to another event. This was the visit of the Canadian author Naomi Klein who wrote the book No Logo. The meeting was really interesting, talking about the implications of free trade agreements and the World Trade Organisation. Check out http://www.nologo.org for more information. I did have a cool question to ask about reforming voting systems but by the time I'd honed it enough not to be embarrassed, I ran out of time! Typical.
I decided to go to Spong's second lecture so was in town for lunch, but decided to get the train instead. What a cool little railway line from Johnsonville to Wellington, great fun! Spong once again did his stuff and I sat next to Lois again. She writes a food column for one of New Zealand's magazines, and I was delighted when she asked me for dinner on Sunday! Hooray!
In the afternoon I caught the train to Plimmerton which has a really nice beach next to the station, so I chilled out on the beach for a bit before heading back to Newlands and home.
Went to the Spong seminar this morning, but could only hack half the day. My head was spinning after all that and I'd had enough, so I spend the afternoon sipping coffee and having a think about what I'm going to do on the South Island. It's nearly time to move on from Wellington, my feet are itching!
Sunday, and a trip to the seaside with the Robinson family. We packed up their MPV with sausages, drinks, matches, buckets, spades and the kitchen sink and headed off to Makara Beach. The beach wasn't too far from Wellington but it was down a really wiggly road and you felt that the city was miles and miles away. There was not really any sand, mainly pebbles, but we found a good place to have a fire and so Doug put his fire making skills to use.
Pretty soon we had a good fire going and we were joined by some of Doug and Sally's friends from their church with some more food. Sally had also brought a frying pan and some eggs, so although there was some scepticism, the frying pan went on the fire. I kept the faith though and a few minutes later we had some lovely cooked eggs.
Once the cooking was over, the kids went off to the rock pools, catching crabs, fishes and shrimps whilst we sat around the fire, stacked it up to create a towering inferno and kept warm!
As the sun started to go down, we headed back home, tired, smoky and happy. I had a short bit of time to catch up on Wimbledon - I just knew Henman would lose - before catching the bus into town for my dinner!
I had to catch a couple of buses to get to Lois' house as she lived on the opposite side of town, but I made it their ok and was amazed to see a brick, two storey house! I don't think I'd seen one of those since leaving England! There was a lovely fire going inside and I met Mike, Lois' partner and Sam and Sharon, Lois' son and daughter in law. I'd started getting a bit hungry on the bus too, so I was glad that we soon sat down to eat.
We had a really tasty lamb stew and I ended up having three helpings in the end, before desert, which involved pears, rice and a new golden kiwi sauce thing. I was being used as a guinea pig to test the reaction to the sauce and I can confirm that it was delicious!
All in all, a most enjoyable evening and I was sad to have to go. Sam and Sharon kindly offered to give me a lift back to Newlands, even though it was miles out of their way, hooray! Unfortunately though, I realised that I had caught another cold....
I didn't get much sleep last night, so I was really tired in the morning and was questioning the wisdom of leaving my lovely bed when I felt so rubbish.
The day looked bright though so my spirits lifted as we headed down to the ferry terminal for the sailing. Sally and the kids dropped me off and I was sad to say goodbye. My stay in Wellington had been great and I really liked the city.
It was soon boarding time and I climbed up to the observation deck to get a great view of the city and harbour as we chugged along. I'd decided to take the slower ferry to make the most of the views and my plans for the South Island had come together with a little help from the Robinsons, hence the Robinson Route!
My original plan was to head from Picton, where the ferry goes to, to Nelson. From there I was going to possibly do the Abel-Tasman coastal tramp and have a look around, but I knew there were other things I wanted to do more. The Robinson Route is to head down to Queenstown to do snowboarding and all that stuff, then to hire a car for the last couple of weeks to see as much other things as I can, including Milford Sound, Dunedin and the glaciers. The plan meant that I would get the car for the least possible time rather than having it sat around whilst I went boarding and if I had time, then I could always head back up to Nelson at the end.
Anyways, the crossing was really beautiful and clear and the route to Picton, through the Marlborough sounds was very picturesque although I wouldn't say it was spectacular. From there I transferred to the train which took me to Kaikoura. So, here I am in the Topspot hostel, just about to cook myself some pasta for dinner. I'm booked in on a whale watching trip tomorrow and then hopefully will be heading South to Christchurch on Wednesday.
Kaikoura looked beautiful as the sun went down, with the sea crashing on to the shore with snow capped mountains looming above the coast. Fantastic!