We started our travels in New Zealand with a visit to Jodee and Rupert in Wellington (for those that don't know, Jodee and I worked together at PwC in Cambridge before she took a secondment to Wellington and never came back!). We arrived on Sunday 23rd June to a beautiful, sunny crisp day. You wouldn't have believed that just a couple of days earlier Wellington had its worst storm in 40 years!
Jodee and Rupert took us for a drive round the city and up to the two main lookouts at the wind turbine and Mt Victoria for some amazing views of the city and harbour, as well as a rising super-moon! They also have some amazing views from their house at the top of a hill - I can see why they didn't want to come back to Cambridge!
The next day we walked down into the city centre, via the botanic gardens. We just had a wander around past the Parliament and the CBD, did a bit of shopping for thermals - we'd forgotten what cold was after over 2 years in sunny Queensland! Frosty mornings are a bit of a shock to the system when it barely gets below 15 degrees in Brissie!
We also organised our ferry ticket for the next day and went down to the harbour. We stopped for a beer/mulled wine and an amazing mini cheese fondue to warm up before heading to the office to grab a lift home and save walking up the hill!
We'd booked on the 2:30pm ferry to the South Island for the Tuesday but the storms had damaged one of the ferries so we'd been warned that it wasn't due to leave until 5pm. This gave us a bit more time to sort out our hire car and also have a good look round the big museum Te Papa. We looked at the earthquake proofing in the basement and stood in the earthquake house inside that simulated a R5 earthquake. It was a really good museum, interactive and good features on natural history (a giant squid!), geologoical NZ and also history. We could have done with a bit more time to see more of the exhibitions but we went back as we'd been told to be at the ferry terminal by 4pm.
We turned up at 4pm to an empty terminal! Turned out the ferry was further delayed and wouldn't be leaving til about 8pm! Rupert came to the rescue and picked us up after work and Jodee cooked a quick dinner so we could eat and get warm before we went back. It finally left about 8:30, only 6 hours late! Unfortunately by then it was dark so we didn't see any of the scenery on the way, arriving in Picton at about 11:15pm, where we picked up the hire car (which was covered in ice!) and drove to Blenheim and bed!
