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

Day 13: Masterton to Welington, 140km, lots of socialising and a spectacular fall The Donkey was up before the crack of dawn and set of in the dark at 6.30 a.m. It was cold. The donkey could not find his cycling jacket, must have left it somewhere, he thought. He was not surprised as he always lost stuff. Butterfly usually came to the rescue as she had an uncanny ability to know where any of the Donkey’s lost items would be. But Butterfly was not there (yet) so he could not ask her. As expected the Donkey got lost trying to find his way out of Masterton. Perhaps he should have waited till it was light as by the time he finally found Colombo Street, the street he was looking for, dawn was breaking. There was ... read more

Our first full day in NZ was a busy one. We left the hotel about 9-30 and stopped for breakfast at Pandoro's near the docks area. We then went to Te Papa. This is a wonderful museum which we had visited before. Today the main attraction was a special exhibition about Gallipoli and especially NZ's part in the landings and the subsequent fighting there in 1915. The first room immediately confronts the viewer as it contains a giant figure of a soldier firing his pistol. These amazing statues are peppered throughout the exhibition. There were also interactive dioramas of the terrain and demonstrations of the battles. Not a huge number of artefacts but the confronting nature of the large sculptures certainly made this memorable. We spent over an hour looking through this and reading the stories ... read more

Nous arrivons le soir à Porirua, une première puisqu'on s'était promis de ne pas rouler de nuit. En hiver, le soleil de Nouvelle-Zélande se couche encore plus tôt qu'à La Réunion; vers 17.30. Cette ville en bord de mer est très jolie et bien plus grande que ce qu'on imaginait. On gare le van sur un terrain: derrière nous 2 stades de rugby pendant que l'océan et un parc nous font face. Y a pas à dire, les parkings self-contained de façon générale proposent de beaux emplacements et proches de commodités: de quoi passer un moment agréable. On a (toujours) de la chance puisque le soleil est au rendez-vous donc on décide de se promener, prendre une douche (2$), faire des emplettes dans un outlet et bien sûr passer à la bibliothèque pour recharger nos appareils ... 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