PPPPP

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January 27th 2009-01-30


We arose around five (one day, I’m going to murder the bugler) to catch the Overlander, the scenic train journey that takes twelve beautiful hours to travel from Auckland to Wellington. We chugged along 680kms, crossing 352 bridges and ducking 19 tunnels. The hills are very rippled and some are snow-capped, and the valleys and gorges have been deepened by the drought and are very dramatic. Really, it looks nothing like the U.K. down here. Once we reached the Tasman Sea, George saw a big island and announced loudly “oh look, there’s Australia,” which made everyone one the coach laugh. He claims it was a joke, but I’m not sure. We ate mince pies and butter chicken once the food went on sale. Ketchup was still full price, but we were travelling through The Land Before Time on a train built in the sixties, so it was OK.



January 28th 2009


And on the seventeenth day, K & G rested. We set to uploading this blog (the internet is just so unreliable and slow everywhere we go) and general administration. I got some bad (but not unexpected) news about U of T, so we did a lot of talking about what happens next, in the extremely long and short term and everything in between. There seems to be so much to see and do, much more than we’d ever imagined. We’ll just have to reincarnate a couple times to fit it all in.


Around six we moved into a coffee shop (that’s the thing in Wellington) and met some amazing caffeine-scene locals who showed us around. We hiked up a never-ending staircase to a flat that was all electric colours and zebra print, with a view that made it worth the walk. We drank Tui and ordered pizza. It was refreshingly laidback.

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