NZ : Wellington - The Lost Days.

From Taupo we planned to head to Napier and Hawks Bay for a couple of relaxing days by the sea. This plan, as with many, quickly changed as we arrived and realised that there was little to do in this small Art Deco town. Napier was destroyed in the 1931 earthquake and all buildings had to be rebuilt. This left Napier stuck in the 30's era with quaint streets and vintage looking structures. We stopped here briefly for a bite to eat at Ujazi, a delightful cafe with delicious food before deciding to pop to the craft shop down the road to make jewelery and apease our creative side.

Wellington was approximately 200km away so we made the choice to power through and reach the capital before the day was over. The long drive saw us playing 21 questions and the less entertaining I-spy. We had a slightly hairy incident in which the Sat Nav took us to a non existant petrol station, and running on fumes alone meant we had to door knock in the small village for help. The kind man who answered the door, generouly offered us a hand with directions and topped us up with enough gas to get us to the nearest station. Thanks Mike!

We arrived at the Cambridge Hotel Backpackers in Wellington around 21:00, just enough time for a quick drink before bed and to accost the receptionist for 'must sees' whilst in the capital. With a full itinerary in the pipeline, we retired to bed for much needed rest and recouperation.






The first morning saw us rambling around Cuba Street, Wellingtons notoriously alternative hub full of coffee houses, vintage stores and book shops galore. We were in our eliment and spents hours bouncing from rail to rail oogling all the treasures we couldn't afford. With much resistance, we left empty handed, except for our tickets to see the renowned stand up comedian, Steve Hughes. We had a true Lord of the Rings experience in the afternoon as we made our way to east Wellington to visit the ever popular Weta Caves.

The Weta Cave is Weta's mini-museum, theaterette and shop located on the corner of the actual workshop where props and production take place for major motion pictures such as Avatar, LOTR, King Kong and Tin Tin, but to name a few. Here we had the pleasure of talking to Mark, who was a fountain of knowledge and shared stories of his time of the set of LOTR as a Orc and Hobbit. We took this oportunity to pose with numerous fiberglass figures, such as Trolls, Gollum, and a huge Uruk-hai before quickly dashing to the airport for a glimpse of the 2,645-pound, 9.8 foot-high, 43-foot-long sculpture of Gollum created in 3 days and nights to celebrate Peter Jackson's newest film, The Hobbit.

Before making our way to the San Francisco Bath House, we did our best to make ourselves look presentable for our first evening out in some time. Unfortunately, a malfuctioning hairdryer incident left Susie with a singed hair style, far from desirable. Steve Huges' black comedy suited our British sense of humour perfectly and we belly laughed our way through the evening. This conspiracy theorist/cynic touched upon some of the worlds hot topical debates and was almost uncomfortably politcally incorrect at times, but we loved it. So much so, we have taken some choice phrases away with us, the funniest being his views on popular music videos, 'Oh great here's a dickhead dancing on T.V and some sluts have appeared....I'm offended, call the police.' This was in reference to not being able to quantify being offended in a court of law. 'Well... your being offended... offends me!'. The man was a genius. See link below for snippet of this hilarious comedian.

http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=29555


We had a stroke of luck the next day on our way to Zealandia as we met a traveller leaving the country who gave us some gas and cooking stuff he was looking to get rid of. Score!

Zealandia is an eco-sancutary on the outskirts of Wellington, here we used our GrabOne discounted tickets to see some of New Zealand's rarest birds, reptiles and insects living wild in their natural environment, including hihi, tuatara, saddleback, kākā and tui. We met a spritely character called Judith, a lady in her late 70's who was travelling New Zealand and staying in the YHA hostel. She was so inspiring, she had an eviable zest for life and did not let age or frailty ( 2 knee replacements) stop her from doing anything and everything that she wanted to. After our Zealandia tour we sat in the Botanical Rose Garde and had lunch with this lovely woman, enthralled by her tales of travel and teaching. We both felt a warm glow as we parted from Judith to head down in to Wellington centre.

We wandered about the town and started our preparations for the Abel Tasman Coastal Walk, one of New Zealands Great walks, at the Department of Conservation centre where we picked up maps nd tidal crossing times (whic were very important to know unless you wanted to swim these parts of the walks.)  As we learned more about this walk we realised that it was going to mean multiple days of walking and staying in huts with the most basic of facilities just running water and drop toilets, no heating, electricity or cooking facilities. It was too late to back out, our egos had latched on to the idea and were not letting go, we had sealed our fate.

Peace and Love,

Jan and Sooz.