Brentwood Wellington

... vinyard and lots of other fun things to do. We went to Martinborough a day later, yesterday (Monday), after the big celebration with our new friend Saskia. She picked us up in her car and we rode to her house to pick up a friend who is staying with her family, Flor, who is Danish and is staying with them thru Feburary. Saskia had a really beautiful house with an amazing view over the harbor. She even has a pool, which she said is very nice to use on ...

... i w&#322;&#261;czaj&#261; &#347;wiat&#322;a jak jest noc. Maj&#261; to w dupie jak jest szarówka, wieczór lub jak pada deszcz (tato - lepiej tu nie przyjezdzaj bo zawa&#322;u dosta&#263; mozna...). Aha - no i jak przejezdza si&#281; przez tunel to ludzie tr&#261;bi&#261; - tak dla zabawy - w sumie zaaklimatyzowa&#322;em si&#281; i teraz sam trobi&#281; - &#347;wietna zabawa, a co!!!! ;P<br><br>Aha - no i mam wreszcie wyja&#347;nienie ...

... make for tough translation on occasions. I kind of missed French Joe's though. Even though it had only existed in my mind for a few days. It had sounded to me like the place that did the best croissants and bagels in town and all the staff had to wear berets. So we kept calling it French Joe's just for fun. <br><br>Martin and I then spent the Sunday borrowing bikes from the hostel &#8211; the Bug &#8211; and riding down to a local Flea market. Now; any romantic images that ...

... to see De La for about 20 years but never got round to it. (Which I told the singer in not so many words when I jumped up on the stage at the end of the gig with about half the crowd!) A few more pictures are available ...

... the downtown, where we were the first time. We went to the top of Mount Victoria where you could see forever in all directions. <br><br>While in Wellington, we heard back from a few different families about us Wwoof'ing with them. We choose the Martin family, one hour north of Wellington in Levin. They have a HUGE dairy farm. So we headed to their home on Friday afternoon.

... fact it has quite a few shops, seems to be the museum. New Zealand seems to be very good at making museums, and Wellington is no exception. It recently acquired a giant squid and you can now go and see the thing, bobbing up and down in a tank. Or at least you can when they aren't doing repair work on it. Supposedly it looks almost as if it were still alive, although I felt the fact some of its skin seemed to be peeling off kind of spoilt this effect. Just before I ...

... consider Matauri Bay to be one of the highlights of our time in New Zealand. Slightly off the tourist trail, the owner told us that we were the first Canadians to camp there (that he knew of) in over two and a half years. What an honour! :) The scenery was absolutely magnificent. We parked with our backs to a green forest, and were surrounded on both sides by the beautiful blue ocean. The following day we took the ferry across to the postcard-perfect town of Russell ...

... the army for training.  These fields, although dry now would become almost a swamp in the next rain.   The fields were then pushed aside by the huge mountain used in LoR as Mount doom.  It's bear and jagged shape contrasts so much to the soft fields it looks like a prop that was just too big to move.  After Mt doom, the road became forest again broken by rolling fields and the occasional river until an hour out of wellington when we found the beach.  It is just bizarre to ...

... you like hawks, we decided to go for the prepay taxi, we had read although it was slightly more expensive,you are sure to arrive at your destination in one piece, also it was 11.30pm so all we wanted to do was to fall into a bed, it is about 1/2 drive to semiyak where we were staying this cost us 70,000.00 about £4:50 &amp; in contrast to getting rid of the porter which we only had 10000.00 notes,which worked out to £6.00, so this was our first lesson in money.

... crossed... <br><br>It was half time and we were 2-0 up, so I knew we would be ok. <br><br>Relieved and re-fuelled respectively, we set off heading due south for Wellington, capital of New Zealand and gateway to the south island. <br><br>The drive was very nice without being spectacular, the only thing of ...