Wellington and Napier

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Hi everyone! We're now in the North Island! For anyone following our itinerary you may have noticed we were due to fly out of Auckland to LA on 7th March, well we decided to change our flight, so we'll now be leaving Auckland on the 26th March! Giving us a few extra weeks to make sure we see the North Island properly! woooooo!

We arrived in Wellington on the 26th Feb and that evening we met up with V's friend Janet, who lives in Wellington, for a drink at Mac's Brewery. And later on Toby joined us after a long drive down from Napier! We found a good Nasi Goreng for tea and went to an Irish bar.

On Wednesday V spent the day with Janet's parents Marion and John who were over in NZ visiting Janet. We went to the Parliament buildings in the morning and in the afternoon drove along the coastal road around the bays as far as Owhiro bay, before heading back to Janet's house. Sel and Toby spent the day investigating all the shops in the city centre - mostly window shopping though due to limited funds! That evening we all met up for Fish n Chips on the waterfront! And then went for a drive up to the lookout for an imprerssive view over the City and harbour!

On Thurs we went to Te Papa, NZ's national museum and sorted out changing the date of our flight. In the evening Sel and Toby tested out some of Wellington's bars.

On Friday Sel and Toby drove up to Napier, stopping at Masterton on the way to visit the school Toby used to work at. In the afternoon V went to the airport with Janet to see off Marion and John, who were flying back to the UK that evening, via Auckland, and stopping in Hong Kong on the way for a few days before flying on to London. There was a local Rugby match on that evening at the Wellington stadium, we were tempted to go but were a little late so second best was watching in a pub!!

The rain arrived on Saturday! But Janet managed to play a bit of tennis before it got too wet! I (V) watched the first match and then went to get my haircut! Cinema in the eve to see Lady Chatterly...

On Sunday we went back to Te Papa to see the whale exhibition which was really worth seeing - especially having actually seen the whales in Kaikoura! We were invited for a mexican meal at Janet's friends' house that evening which was really nice!

The next few days V spent in various art galleries and looking round the shops in the city... on Mon night we got the cable car up the hill after janet finished work! see pics! And on Tues night we went for a drive over to Days Bay and Eastbourne in search of little blue penguins! We stopped for a pizza and a beer to wait for it to get dark... Unfortunately we didn't actually manage to see any penguins but we're sure they were there, hiding, - we could hear chirping!

An afternoon walk up the hill (on Wed) near Janet's house gave some pretty good views down onto the city and out to sea...

On Thursday V caught the bus to Napier to join Sel and Toby... Sel had spent the week chilling out and seeing the sights of Napier and poor Toby had been working solidly to earn money for travelling!

We spent a few days in and around Napier... we visited an amazing, isolated, sandy beach one day - not many people seemed to know about it, besides a few surfers catching waves... see pics

On Saturday we finally got to see Toby play cricket! We went over towards Hastings to 'Cornwall Cricket Club'... a very English looking cricket ground surrounded by Oak trees. To our amusement we got chatted up by some 'adolescents' !! and heckled at from a passing car by a woman shouting 'alright ladies!' ... bizarre town.... It was a really nice day and to top it off his team won!

Onwards (all three of us! 😊 )...... to Rotorua.............................

Love Vicz, Selz and Tobz (as Toby likes to call us!) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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