Green Gables Motel Wellington

With only two hours to wander the streets of Wellington before boarding the ferry to the South Island we followed the advice of the Lonely Planet and headed to Cuba Street for coffee and shops. I have always fancied the idea of living in a town full of fabulous ...

... uns gefahren. Wir waren so genervt dass wir nicht mehr laenger in Taupo bleiben wollten, deswegen sind wir mit einem anderen Bus direkt nach Wellington gefahren. Jetzt haben wir halt den Schicksalsberg verpasst. Aber na ja, es gibt ja noch mehr schoene Berge hier.

Wellington ist jedenfalls total huebsch und das beste ist dass man hier so viel umsonst machen kann. Gestern sind wir mit dem Cable Car in den Botanischen Garten gefahren ...

... tide you can dig your own spa pool in the sand. The water is scaldingly hot - 60 degrees celsius, as it is heated by molten lava deep below the beach. It was quite a surreal site seeing a hundred or so people all digging big holes and then all getting into them, jacuzzi style. Needless to say the kids loved it.

From there we headed up to some of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen. They were totally deserted and reminded us of the Isles of Scilly ...

... br>DOC Campsite where we stayed for the night. In the morning we hiked
up to the pinnacles (where some of LOTR was filmed). We had to keep
crossing a stream either by finding rocks to step on or by taking a
running jump, doing the latter meant that I ended up with wet feet.
The Pinnacle were cool though but the 'falling rocks' warning signs
made me a bit nervous... always ...

... of volcanic eruptions. There was also a large section devoted to local animals and plants. There were Kiwi birds and even a life size replica of a Moa. The Moa was a huge bird indigenous to New Zealand which became extinct after the Maoris hunted and killed them all for food since there were not many animals/mammals in New Zealand before the white people brought cows, sheep etc. There was also a preserved ...

... kein Geld verleihen. Mal schauen ob ich eine Bank finde, die mir Geld leihen will, die Kiwibank jedenfalls nicht. Gruss Ralf P.S. Links of the week http://www.printthis.clickability.com/p t/cpt?action=cpt&title=My+Manhattan +Project&expire=&urlID=35003522 &fb=Y&url=http%3A//nymag.com/ne ws/business/55687/&partnerID=73272 http://dvice.com/archives/2009/03/aston ishing_mos.php

... hour I was permanently on the wrong side of the road, weaving in and out of the oncoming traffic at a snails pace. Eventually they dwindles out and we went on through Murchison and stopped a little later at the 'Largest Swing Bridge in NZ!' This was good fun, although Jackie bottled it and went back to the car... It bounced and swung really well, much to some peoples displeasure.. On the way back I took the Flying Fox. This was a harness on cables that whizzed you over the river in ...

... a number of different caves and a myriad of ways to see them, but we were on a time limit so we went for the simplest and shortest; a short walk and boat ride through the cave. I was a little disgruntled that we were not allowed to take pictures, but the boat ride was simply breath taking. We were taken into the pitch black cave only to find a sky of green stars. It really is the only comparison, especially with the quality of the night sky ...

... on the South Island, but God only knows how we will squeeze it all in!

Before we knew it, our "couple of drinks" had turned into a drunken 1:30am finish, but we'd had a top time with our lovely hosts, and we were (and remain) very grateful for them showing us a bit of their town on what was after all ...

... in the Beehive, but as Parliament wasn’t sitting she wasn’t around. She was probably at home in the back shed tinkering with the engine on her lawnmower, checking on the progress of her home brewed beer, or doing some other similar knockabout blokey hobby. That woman seriously has the voice and general appearance of a man, which goes to show the amount of testosterone needed if you want to be a top dog in politics.