Quest On The Terrace Wellington

... his wife, sitting on two chairs on a platform, on the shoulders of men dressed in leaves.

We arrived late at night in Auckland, so really only had one day to look around. It seems to have developed a lot since we were last there in 1996. We explored the harbour, the shops and the parks and Jake and I went up the Skytower, which at some 328m is the highest tower in the southern hemisphere. We met up with a lovely family we'd met in Raro, who invited us to ...

... war das Wetter jedoch perfekt fuer einen Lauf, es fand Harbour Capital Race (http://www.harbourcapital.org.nz/) statt, Marathon, Halb-Marathon, 10km und Walking Events. Ich habe meinen zweiten Halb-Marathon gelaufen und meine Zeit gegenueber Februar um ueber 2min verbessert, was mich doch sehr erstaunt hat, da ich in meiner Vorbereitung doch ueber 10sec langsamer pro kilometer gelaufen bin als zum Jahresanfang. Aber dieser Halbmarathon hatte besseres Wetter ...

... expecting to find an art gallery. We then went to a second art gallery in search of a toilet, and came upon quilt central - so popular it had to be split between two gallerys. I've been to worse exhibitions! We also went to the national museum which had a great deal of interactive learning. There was a house that shook whilst you were in it, demonstrating a real earthquake. You could have spent hours in there. The perfect place for a school trip!

... kerrasta viisastuneena (tai ilmeisesti tyhmentyneenä) olin varannut paikat vasta kello 14.20 lähtevään lauttaan. Nyt oltiin siis tällä kertaa ihan liian aikaisin, mutta onneksi saatiin siirrettyä itsemme heti seuraavaksi lähtevään laivaan ilman ongelmia. Matka kohti Uuden-Seelannin pääkaupunkia Wellingtonia saattoi näin (komeasti aikataulusta edellä) alkaa. Ja ennen kuin laivalla alkoi hupi ja hulabaloo, niin ehdittiin ...

... is beautiful - we did a city tour as well and saw the highlightsof the city as well as other important aspects of NZ's past. In truth we're fair "cul'yured oot, so we are" The Parliament building is called the Beehive - see the photo and you'll understand why! Up at 6.00 tomorrow morning and across to SI on the 8.30 ferry. It'll probably be Christchurch before I have any thing more to add. Have now added photos As ever hope you are all well Cheers T an'M

... questions and was told by the gentleman concerned that he had not paid a cent towards the cost of these cruises, at this point you could have heard a pin drop in the room as everyone was wondering how this could be. Frankie being the sort of person who is not afraid to ask probing questions asked how this gentleman had been so lucky and he received the reply that he has a very wealthy benefactor that he travels with and when they had started traveling some 20 years ago ...

... in wellington so is very informative, he has a large garden so stuart decided to help out with a bit of weeding & ted suggested we stayed & carried on, perhaps we could emigrate & start up a business, it could help stus hands as they have been better. we were up with the lark on the 27th as we wanted to see some of wellington before we sailed across to the south island at lunch time ted cooked us an awesome breakfast, we ...

... that's why they grow all sorts of different fruits and wine. We stayed just outside of Napier, a really nice city that was almost completely rebuilt after a big earthquake. All the buildings are built in Art Deco style and they have shops filled with clothes in the style from those years as well and every year they have an art deco festival. We went to a local farmers market the next day, it wasn't very big but they still had a lot of good things that are produced in the region ...

... glass of wine and ordered some "widges" (what Kiwis inadvertently call potato wedges!) and chilled out.

Tonight we're meeting a friend of Rich's called Mark who seems like a nice lad from our emailing recently to arrange it, apart from being a Man U fan ;)

Katie & I had dinner in a nice Asian ...