Advertisement
Published: January 11th 2010
Edit Blog Post
I traveled by bus to Wellington last night. I thought I'd save a bit of money by making the 10 hour trip overnight, but it turned out to not quite be worth it. All was fine traveling through the seemingly endless mountains of the north island's west coast until it started pouring rain. Most the bus passengers fell asleep early, but being the night owl that I am, I was awake to witness the beginning of the downpour around 1 am. It all seems like a bad dream at this point, so I don't really want to re-live it at this moment, but I will say that witnessing fresh bloody cadavers along the route did nothing to encourage any shut-eye for me. Instead I sat wide-eyed and white-knuckled in the front seat praying to gods that I don't actually believe in until we arrived safely in Wellington at 7am.
I couldn't check in until 10am, so I checked my bag and headed to a local coffee shop for breakfast. It seens that no one serves just plain coffee in New Zealand, instead the proper order is a "flat white." This is actually two shots of espresso tamed with steamed cream, and it is quite delicious. However, for a girl on no sleep, it probably was not the wisest choice. When I arrived back at the Downtown Backpacker, the sleep I so needed seemed improbable. I chatted briefly with my room mates, who conveniently had the same name of Monica. Easy for a tired brain such as mine. Monica no. 1 was from Germany, and Monica no. 2 was from Switzerland. They were both sleeping in late and taking turns bemoaning the cloudy skies that they swore would ruin their day. After rattling off the horrific adventure of the previous night to them, they gratefully understood my position and let me quickly slip into my bed for some attempted rest. There were some other roomies who appeared to be headed out, so we didn't chat too much. The room cleared out within the next hour and I managed to get a few strange, half-sleep hours in before the sounds of the harbor and smell of fresh air wafting in the window beckoned me to shower and make a plan for the day.
Despite the doubts of the Monicas, the sun did actually show its face around noon and, to me, it looked like a perfect day to visit the local zoo. I hopped the bus to the Newton district and paid my way in to park. I have to say I am quite spoiled to have grown up in a city with the largest free zoo in the nation, so I tried to brace myself for a slight dissapointment. The $18 entry fee equalled out to be about 2$ per animal, thus I had to continuously remind myself that I was paying for the opportunity to see unique native species. I did enjoy the adventure, though I quickly realized that the previous night's electricity-absent bus ride left me with a almost dead camera battery. So there was no fooling around, just preset-guess the shot, flip the camera on, shoot, and flip it off. I think I got some great pix nevertheless, especially of the bears and giraffes.
Lacking camera power, I headed back to the hostel for a recharge. Reacarging can be boring to watch, so I slipped down to the hostel bar and chatted with whomever came within socializing range. I met another girl from Germany who is living in Christcurch and recommends visiting the town (this is a town I had previously considered skipping). Then I met a gypsy fisherman, Andy, who was hunkering down at the hostel while his boss was trying to sell the fishig boat across the way at the wharf. They had spent the last few days giving it a new coat of paint, and though they had put the work in, Andy said he believed his boss secretly didnt want to sell it and he figured they would more likely be headed out to the Samoas soon. Suprisingly, the next people to make a presence was the couple that were packing up in my dorm this morning. Apparently they were just checking out and planned on taking the ferry to the south island this evening. They have been travelling for quite a few months and most recently travelled in a campervan around the entire coast if Austrailia. They are looking for temp work of any sort, probably in Nelson, so I won't be suprised if I run into them again soon.
I figured the Monicas might be back from their days adventures, so I headed back to the room to find them excitedly packing. They had scored ferry tickets for tommorow as well and would be joining the rest of our dorm in travelling to the south island. We chatted for hours about love, families, relationships, life lessons, and other things that seem to transcend almost all cultural barriers. Turns out that the Monica from Switzerland works with kids with handicaps, so we had much to discuss as Monica no. 2 showered.
Before long it was late, and I relocated myself to the hostel kitchen to heat my $3 penne pasta in a bag for dinner, and convinced myself that it would be no problem to put off doing my laundry at the next hostel. That next hostel will be in Picton, as I will take the ferry across at 2pm tomorrow. Can't hardly wait!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.143s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0349s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb