Wellington

  Wellington, North Island, New Zealand
Monday, May 25, 2009

View of Wellington from Victoria Lookout

On Monday we got up early and went to meet up with Kate Ilsely (one of Nat's family friends from home) and she chauffered and showed us round Wellington (New Zealand's capital city) for the day. So once we found somewhere to park the van we set off with Kate in her car. First of all she drove us up to Victoria lookout which has great views over the city (it was lucky we were able to see anything though as the weather was getting progressively worse and worse).

Nat and Kate on the beach

Our second stop of the day was the beach! We visited two beaches - first of all we visited a sandy beach and had a nice, if somewhat windy, walk. The sand was all over the road, evidence of the crazy storms of the previous evening. We then drove on a bit and visited a second beach which was a rocky clambering kind of beach which was really fun, looking in rock pools and collecting shells :-). After a little while of playing on the rocks the weather decided to worsen so we headed into the centre of Welllington for cover.

Starfish in the rock pools

We walked around the city for a little while and then we had lunch in a delicious little Malaysian restaurant (and of course we had the first hand experience to know what to order - so Nat had chicken curry and Jim had Nasi Goreng). After lunch we headed to Te Papa, the main museum in Wellington. We first of all visited the Giant Squid which is on display, which was pretty cool. We then had a nice long look around the kind of Volcanic History of New Zealand exhibit which was really interesting, as basically the country sits entirely along a faultline. They had an earthquake simulator (similiar to the one in the Earth Galleries in the Natural History Museum) which we had a go on and we also had a look at a display about when the islands used to be joined together! (a long time ago lol). Our final stop was the Maori Culture gallery where we went into a big meeting house, had a look at a food storage house and some of the "canoes" (they're humongous) that they navigated the seas in 700 years ago. On our way out we had a go at polishing a big Greenstone (jade) boulder. So that was all good fun.

Jim and Kate polishing greenstone

In the afternoon we headed back to Kate's house for tea and biscuits (and South America planning - we picked her brain as she travelled SA for 7 months). In the evening she served us a gorgeous meal of cajun chicken with roast veggies and yams (a yummy New Zealand vegetable), followed by golden kiwi fruits (so much better than the green ones) and chocolate. It was a feast and so nice to be in a home.

We then went back to our campsite where we sat up late chatting to two other campers who we pretty much saw at every campsite in the South Island. In the morning we headed North towards Tongariro.

lots and lots and lots of love xxxx