Blogs from Wellington, Wellington Region, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania

Day 12: Palmerston North to Masterton 104km. How much misery can a donkey take? What one can do to oneself, it beggars belief, contemplated the Donkey while he was climbing a massive hill, just outside Palmerston North. The hill was so big that no amount of sticks you threw at it would cover it or even put a dent in it. The road he was on was called Pahiatu Aokautere road, 'a popular training hill for local roadies' it said in the instructions. That is all nice and well for a roady with a 7kg bike but it is a different story for a donkey on a fully laden mountain bike, weighing around 30 kg, plus of course the weight of the donkey, even if he surely must have lost some weight since the start of ... read more

Geo: -41.2865, 174.776This morning, we borrowed the bikes from our hotel and explored the geothermal springs in Rotorua. Then, caught a 50 passenger, 2 prop plane, for the 1 hour and 10 minute flight from Rotorua to Wellington. Wellington is a small city on the southern tip of the north island, with a number of restaurants and bars. It has about the same population as Richmond, Virginia.... read more

Geo: -41.2865, 174.776We received a call from our hosts for Thursday and Friday at 7:45 am - leave asap, the main road from Taupo to Wellington is closed due to freaky weather!!! Uh Oh.We headed out from this lovely apartment overlooking the lake-larger-than-Singapore and drove the same way south we had done to climb the giant volcanic mountains - because it was the road to the East that was closed. The so-called "desert road," probably because the wind sweeps over a plains. We did encounter some little squalls of rain, then snow, then tiny hails, but nothing out of the ordinary for Ohioans :)We came upon rolling hills, flat lands, lots of cows and sheep (we expected the sheep, but the cows are everywhere - black and white Friesians, sweet-eyed Jerseys and Guernseys, brown ones, even ... read more

Geo: -41.2865, 174.776We had another sluggish day at sea yesterday and managed only a bit over 6,000 steps. Yesterday was Mothering Sunday, Britain's version of Mothers' Day, and the restaurant offered a special chocolate dessert for all the mothers with dinner. Actually anyone could order it, but it was nice. The day in Wellington started slowly. I have been fighting off a cold the last couple of days and wanted to take it easy again. We spent most of yesterday at sea just reading and relaxing. I had planned a self-guided walk around Wellington, and we did part of it before tiring out and returning to the ship. Started with breakfast in the Princess Grill before leaving the ship. We took the Cunard shuttle into the center of Wellington driving first through the shipyard containing huge ... read more

Geo: -41.2865, 174.776Some two years later I am finally getting around to doing this blog! Wow!So after throwing the ring in to Mount Doom, we headed to Napier where we visited my Aunt.The town of Napier is quite nice with Art Deco buildings and the beach. It's also a handy place for wine lovers although we couldn't really appreciate in that way as we don't really drink wine, although in typing this two years later, we have more of a appreciation and liking of wine. We visited Te Mata peak with what Anna describes as the classic New Zealand landscape.We also visited Ocean Beach which is south of Napier and tucked in to a roast chicken lunch while improving our tans.Then it was on the road to Wellington to see yet another Aunt, via McDonalds in ... read more