Odd shaped balls!

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The ferry over to the North island took about 5 hours, for some bizzare reason they had to take a different route which added another hour onto the normal time. But we didnt mind as we made ourselves comfy in a "cinema"section of the ferry and happily watched a Kate hudson film, but Gras favourite film of all time was saved until last.... "Bratz", yes thats right the one that was made all about those dolls- watchable, but a little bit gutted that we missed the last 10 minutes- im sure we'll get over it. Anyway we had made use of the time we'd had on the ferry to decide which campsite we wanted to go to in Wellington so we new where we were headed as soon as we got there and we even made it without getting lost.

The next day we went into Wellington to explore New Zealands capital. First stop was the tourist info centre but surprisingly not to get the usual info- this time was much more exciting...... we'd realised that there was a rugby game on that night and as it was on our list of things to do we wanted to try and get tickets. The tourist info centre didnt sell them but told us to get down to the stadium where at midday they were selling the last 2000 tickets- this was at about 11.30 so we walked extremely fast all the way to the stadium which we realized wasnt actually that close. Luckily there werent 2000 people infront of us in the queue so we were able to get tickets- we even found out who was playing (just a minor thing) and then decided who was going to support who- i went for the red Crusaders of Christchurch while gra chose the home team The Hurricanes. With that sorted we then decided to get on with the tourist things for the day. Firstly was the tour of parliament, not something we'd normally do but it was free and actually turned out to be quite interesting (i still dont understand anything about politics but hey never mind). Then onto the museum and then the art gallery where we ended up walking out in protest- how can people call what they were displaying art!

We needed to be at the stadium for about 6 o'clock so at 5 we went back to the van and I got my first lesson on the rules of rugby, well i say my first but i think gra has tried to explain them a few times in the past but it always went in one ear and out the other so this time i tried my best to concentrate on what he was saying. We walked up to the stadium with the rest of the population of Wellington and as soon as we were in we were handed Hurricane flags, capes etc etc. Great but that wasnt my team- after much searching we realized that there wasnt anything free for me- boo. So i got dressed up for the photo but i was definatly NOT supporting the Hurricanes. The Crusaders were favourite to win (they have some all blacks playing for them) but it was a very good game- i even managed to understand it abit- this was made much easier but the crazy guys infront of us who were also supoorting the crusaders so i learnt just to boo and cheer when they did. Ofcourse my team won and ofcourse i still havent let Gra forget this! We had a great time and would definatly go again!

The next morning we woke up to grey and wet weather so we decided to start heading north. We made a brief stop at Rivendal where some of Lord of the rings was filmed and did a few walks around there (luckily the rain stopped for abit). We then drove to Pahiatua and stayed at a nice cheap campsite for the night.

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