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Published: October 5th 2008
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Well it has been a while, however as it is winter - wet, windy and cold we have not really had much to say! However now spring is just about here!
Anyway back to the last entry, after much tooing and throwing and a variety of job offers, interviews, and options, we have found ourselves settled in jobs. Ian is now know as BATman, due to his job on a construction site, as a labourer and insulator(BATS) fitter. I have landed myself a job in a Correspondence College, advising people what courses to do - scarily shaping the lives of some of the not so intelligent! Also whilst looking for work we grabbed a couple of nice afternoons in Wellington, and made our way round part of the National Museam - Te Papa. Here you get shaken by an earthquake machine, spin lots of handles to show moving plates and watch lots of interesting films - including learning about European migration. We still have more to do but hope to have another half day there at some point, particulary as they have a new display which looks pretty good - will tell you more next time!
Whilst here it
hasn't been all work though, and avoiding the elements we have grabbed a couple of nice weekends, and had some good days out.
Our first was a walk along the southern coast, to a place called Red Rocks, it was a lovely sunny winters afternoon, and some stunning rocky scenry, looking over the Cook Strait. however we never quite made it to the Seal Colony, but not sure they were there anyway! See attached photos showing the 'Red Rocks'!
Our next weekend trip was into Wellington, here we took the cable car upto the top of the botanical Gardens, and had a nice walk back down towards parliment . We are planning another trip here, as now a few more flowers are in season - e.g. fields of tulips! We then went to parliment, which was an interesting insite to their history, and a reminder just how small New Zealand's population is. It was a tour round all the buildings, a look at the quake technology, and stories of how it burnt down a couple of times over the last couple of hundred years!
Next was Ian's birthday! Now 28! That day we both worked, but then
went out for a steak meal in the evening, and I got Ian some tickets to see the Wellington Lions play Waikato that weekend. So Saturday came and of we went to the Westpac Stadium to watch the rugby, Wellington won comfortably and we had a nice fish and chip super and Ian a couple of beers!
Our next weekend out was to a place known as the Wairarapa, this is a half hour plus drive over the moutains, and takes you into a plain surrounded by snow capped mountains. Here we drove though some quaint towns including Greytown, which is the oldest planned settlement in New Zealand, and consists of a mix of edwardian and art deco buildings. We then headed to a town called Martinborough, this is Wairarapa Wine Country! This was our favourite town of the area, and we found a nice winery to stop for lunch. We sat ourside on a terrace which looked out over the winery and the snow capped mountains in the distance. The food was good too!
After this we headed down to Wairarapa's coast line. We ventured out to Cape Pallister, and climbed the 250 steps to the top
of some rocks and a lighthouse. Again no seal colony where they were meant to be, however there was a colourful display of bulldozers and boats(the bulldozers were to pull the fishing boats in and out of the water!). We then headed back via a Regional park where some of the Lord of the Rings was filmed, and had a walk over an impressive looking swing bridge.
Now we reach this weekend, well we have had a lovely warm sunny week but the weather has taken a turn so we have been hinding from the wind and rain this weekend, so nothing to tell!
We have another 2 weekends here now and we hope to get to a local wildlife park, an island in the harbour and a walk or two around the Eastbourne coast! Then on the 24th October it is our last day in our jobs and we head north for a couple of days (more to tell later) before we meet up with Ian's parents for our trip south on the 29th! So till then..............
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