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Published: February 12th 2008
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Hi Everyone,
Firstly and very briefly, sorry for the spelling and grammar mistakes last time. For our subscribers in Oceania, sorry for wildly missspelled place names. I also left one sentence half finished. The other winery we visited that exports to the UK is Esk Valley (NZ Wine Maker of the Year 2007) and is available through www.worldofwines.co.uk. They do a particularly nice Verdelo which is contributing to my headache this morning. We're in Wellington now...
Wellington has a stunning marina and on our first full day we ate lunch in warm sunshine, while watching the world and boats go by. On the menu, a seafood platter and fat chips. After this we took a meander through the city to get a feel for the place before getting back into tourist mode.
We decided to take the Wellington cable car up to the botanical gardens that overlook the city. The gardens were stunning, but also felt like a real slice of home. There was a big rose garden that seemingly had hundreds of varieties, and jaime particularly enjoyed going round and smelling most of them. Visiting the gardens also gave us a long winding walk back into town
Smelling the Roses
Martin showed he was a long way off being a gardening expert, apparently every rose "smells of mint gravy." and past the parliament building called the beehive.
As we'd not seen a film since America it was back to the cinema in the evening for a double bill of excellent films: 'Juno' and 'No Country for Old Men' (If violence upsets you, please don't go). Should we be spending so much time of our travels in the cinema? I'm not sure. But you can have your say text YES or NO to 00447961867983. In fact don't: it's very expensive to text overseas, and I think we'll keep going to the cinema anyway.
We visited the National museum the next day to see there huge new exhibition on Whales which included a full skeleton of a large sperm whale that had beached here about 10 years ago and lots of films on whaling and the part that whales play in NZ and Maori culture. It was excellent, and a bargain too. We also took some time to do some exercise as there was an excellent leisure centre near the hostel. Now don't get any ideas that this was like local swimming baths in England, starved of cash, and with all-sorts floating in the water; it was an
immaculate pool with suana, steam room and gym, that you could use for about three quid. And we're getting fortnightly bin rounds, eh. Sorry, lost my train of thought there and veered dangerously into politics. Anyway, after the swim it was back to the hostel for some seafood pasta that we cooked ourselves.
One of the best things we've done in New Zealand was take the free tour of the New Zealand Parliament. Excellent to hear the the history of the place, and the tour guide was very helpful. He was called Kim, and looked a bit like John Malkovic (American actor, google him). The NZ parliament looked a lot like the uk, but smaller and cuter. The afternoon pushed us to museum overload as we went to the national museum to take in the rest of the exhibitions.
The following day was all about the cricket: the first one day international between England and New Zealand. We took a way too big picnic to the stadium and watched a performance of such staggering ineptitude that we thought at one point the England team would turn round, tell us it was a big joke and that the real
Tui Time @ Westpac Stadium
Jaime finds the remedy to the painful England Performance game would start shortly. A guy along the row from us had stayed in NZ an extra two months to catch this game. He left an hour before the end, crestfallen.
Our celebrity count also went up as we were seated just below the commentary box. Unfortunately our photography couldn't keep up but we've got a great photo of Ian Botham's shirt and tie, and a nice one of David Gower's bottom.
And that was it for Wellington. Next morning we headed to the Interislander ferry terminal for our journey between NZs north and south isalnds. The weather on the journey over wasn't great so we didn't see all of amazing views that you can get on the trip, however a school of dolphins did run and jump along side the boat for a while which jaime got a great view of. I was inside watching Tottenham V Derby. I think we know who got the best deal.
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