So our original plan was to head to Hastings, camp there for two nights, go and see Chris’s cousin Amanda and also visit Napier aquarium. However, whilst driving to Hastings Chris hit Jen with the revelation that he wasn’t really that arsed about going to the aquarium, to which Jen replied “hmmm me neither. Let’s discuss this” (actually she said “WHAT THE F?!?! WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY SOMETHING BEFORE?!? THIS IS WHY WE NEED A PLAN! THIS IS WHAT I WAS AFRAID OF! WAH WAH WAH WAH…”) so we stopped for a quick conference at Lake Taupo. Which is bloody beautiful by the way. After a strawberry milkshake Jen was much calmer and we agreed that we didn’t need to spend two nights in Hastings and that actually we could bin off the aquarium, squeeze in a quick visit to Amanda’s and head to Wellington a day early. This meant we could also get the ferry to the South Island a day earlier and we agreed that this was a winning plan.
We made a quick call to Alan to see if they were still at Amanda’s and he told us we were welcome to join them for dinner and spend the night at Amanda’s house so we wouldn’t need to pitch the tent at all. This made us very pleased so we set off for Hastings. On the way there we drove down some very windy mountain roads and saw loads of stunning scenery that looked very Lord Of The Rings-y, so we stopped to take a few photos.
When we arrived at Amanda’s we had time for a quick change before they took us out for dinner at a local English/Irish pub called the Rose & Shamrock. It felt a little bit like we’d stepped into a parallel universe as it looked like an Irish pub inside and they had Murphys, Guinness, John Smiths & Boddingtons on tap - but they were surrounded by loads of weird local bitters. But we had a nice meal and it was lovely to spend more time with Alan, Pam & Amanda.
The following day they took us to a local Farmers’ Market in Napier which was ace as there were loads of little tasty treats that you could try.
Whilst we were there Amanda’s boyfriend Stu called her and told her there had been a tsunami warning. We were slightly concerned but they assured us it was probably nothing to worry about, that they had had tsunami warnings before and nothing had come of it. They then told us that they were taking us to the beach. Jen started to feel a bit nervous.
On the way to the beach Jen discovered (via the medium of iphone) that there had been an 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile and that they were warning of tsunami waves up to 3 metres high, anything up to 12 hours after the quake. So by the time we reached the beach we weren’t really in the mood for paddling and were glad when it was time to go home.
We went back to Amanda’s for lunch and after some quick family photos in the garden we set off on the 4-hour drive to Wellington. Coincidentally we also stopped on this drive for some milkshakes but I can’t remember why we stopped. We just really like milkshakes.
On the way to Wellington we read in the book that there are no campsites there so we rang a few hostels to see if they had any double or twin rooms available for that night after Chris said “I don’t want to stay in a ropey dorm with a load of soap-dodgers”. What with it being the capital and all, most places were fully booked so we ended up taking a room at the YHA which despite being a hostel cost more for one night than two nights camping had cost us in Rotorua. But after the long drive we were just glad to have a bed and a shower.
We went out into Wellington - which is a very windy place - and had some Mexican food at a place we’d read about in the Lonely Planet book. Then we did washing, internet stuff and went to bed.
Today we had a bit of a lie-in and so missed the free bagels at breakfast which was a bit disappointing but we prefer sleeping to carbohydrates. Then we spent hours and hours at Te Papa which is a massive museum here in Wellington that has 6 floors. We only saw about half of it before we had to leave due to information overload. But we did see a giant squid, a whale skeleton and loads of Maori artefacts which were all very cool.
Then we took the cable car (it’s like a tram really) up the hill to look at the view over Wellington; there are also botanical gardens up there. After Chris said “I’m not really that bothered about the botanical gardens” Jen used Jedi mind tricks to get him to walk round the botanical gardens where we saw a beautiful rose garden - so we took Mummy Wheway’s advice literally and took some time to smell the roses.
Tonight we came back to the hostel and cooked some dinner as well as packing sandwiches for tomorrow. We’ve got a very early start as we’re getting the ferry to the South Island at 8:30am; we’re spending the rest of our evening planning our route.
This blog entry is not very exciting with no hilarious tales of japes and scrapes. But it’s nice. And sometimes it’s nice to be nice.
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