Blogs from Wellington Region, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 7

As I outlined earlier - today (yesterday) was a travel day 4 plus hour drive from Mt. Cook to Christchurch then a plane to Wellington and shuttle bus across town to the rent-a-car facility to pick up another car and drive to Wanganui. 14 hours total. If you want to fantisize about driving really fast come here where distance is metric. the speed limit is 100K (60 mph) I was driving 120 and 140 at times. Not that that isn't a little fast at home. ... read more

4 February 2011 This morning was pencilled in as one for a lie in since we had Nelson in our sights for tonight's stop and we knew that it was just under 100km away (a helpful sign just across of the road from the campsite told us that) - there was therefore no hurry to get moving in the morning. The trouble was that our bodies seem to rather like early rises and we were therefore awake at the usual time of 6.30am. Since we weren't in a rush, we executed a leisurely morning tea routine, probably played a couple of hands of Monopoly Deal and then set out on our way. I dimly recalled that, as I was drifting off to sleep last night, Gregg said something about how wonderful it would be if ... read more

I checked out of YHA Wellington with a sense of profound relief. Sue had been kind enough to offer me a ride to Palmerston North, so I'd cancelled my Wellington-to-Palmerston-North bus ticket. I just won't use that part of my bus pass. Sue drove me first to an impressive overlook in the Rimutaka Hills, and then to the Fell Engine Museum. Fell Engines turned out to be small steam locomotives used to provide additional horsepower on a steep grade. The two-story museum included models of the settlements at both ends of the slope, with the higher village, of course, on the second floor. An unusually good documentary film was shown as an introduction to the collection. It explained how the engines worked, and in particular how the trains were kept braked and in control on the ... read more

Nach den Weihnachtsfeiertagen sollte es weiter in Richtung Golden Bay gehen. In Takaga angekommen, fing es allerdings an zu regnen und wir waren von dunklen Wolken umgeben. Damit hatte sich der geplante Strandbesuch bereits morgens um 8 erledigt. Also weiter zur nahe gelegenen Stadt Nelson. Bei einem leckeren Penguino-Eis lässt sich auch mal schlechteres Wetter ertragen. Am nächsten Tag brachen wir dann in Richtung Havelock auf. Von dort wollten wir die Marlborough Sounds erkunden. Unsere Fahrt fand nach wenigen Kilometern ein Ende an der aufgebauten Straßensperre – die Regenfälle der letzten Tage haben die Strasse und auch Havelock unter Wasser gesetzt. Wir entschieden uns dann einen Umweg über den Nelson Lakes National Park zu fahren. Als wir nach einer verregneten Fahrt dort ankamen, gab es die nächste Hiobsbotschaft – die Campsites im National Park sind ebenfalls ... read more

Well, it turns out it's been a while since I last wrote this- almost 4 months in fact! I guess a lot has been going on but it just seemed like normal life really, just that I've been living my normal life at the other side of the world, far away from all you lovely people! But now I've finished up at work and tomorrow morning, just after the rugby finishes, I head off to do my last tiny bit of travelling. Then I get back to beautiful but cold and miserable Scotland on the 3rd of December (Flags ready?!). So, I really should do a bit of an update on whats been going on in Wellington the last 4 months! I'll warn you all now though- this is going to be a bit of a ... read more