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Published: January 5th 2007
Wellington Train Station
A grand old building currently being completely renovated.Continuing our theme of a quiet Christmas, Glynn and I barely ventured out of the hostel on Boxing Day. The weather was still against us with dark skies hanging over the whole city. We took a brief walk through the city centre again but very little was open and the idea of January sales was limited to just a handful of shops and none of them were selling anything Batman or Hello Kitty related so we soon headed back to base and just chilled for the rest fo the day ;-)
27th December Daily life seemed to be returning to normal today so it was time to get round to booking our onward transport to Christchurch. We headed along the harbour and over to the Bluebridge terminal as their ferry is cheaper than the more well-known Interislander ferry. Two one-way tickets for the 3.5 hour sailing only cost us NZ$98 (about 35 pounds). We couldn't get on the 10am ferry as it was sold out already so we had to settle for an earlier crossing at 7am. That means getting up very early - eek! We also managed to buy our train tickets for the Picton to Christchurch
Giant Jish
We spotted this familiar face in a shop along Willis Street.Makes Jish look even cuter,don't you think? leg of the journey. It's a little bit more expensive than the bus ($59 instead of $40) but you get superb views along the coast as you travel plus people sometimes spot whales off the shore. Fingers crossed!
28th December When we originally considered coming to New Zealand, one thing we hadn't known was that Glynn has a distant relative living in the outskirts of Wellington. No-one knew much about him but with a bit of digging, Glynn's mum managed to unearth some contact info for us. This morning, Glynn tentatively picked up the phone and dialled the number. Within minutes we found ourselves being invited over to Taita suburb to meet him.
We got ourselves down to the train station as quickly as we could though this was no mean feat as I had slipped awkwardly in the shower in the morning and injured my toes on the edge of the metal shower tray - ouch! Luckily for us, the local train was delayed and we managed to catch the one we wanted. The journey was nice enough with the train tack hugging the bay all the way round towards the Lower Hutt area.Aswe stepped off the
What's in a Name?
Jude, you're not a Woodward any more! train,we weregreeted by a tall, slim man with a big beaming grin on his face.
David is in fact Glynn's mum's cousin so we're not sure if that makes him a cousin once removed or a second cousin or what (can anyone help?) but whatever the relationship, he was a fun man to meet. He took us over to his apartment and we spent a good 6 hours or so just getting to know each other. It was a very laid back, easy afternoon and it was astonishing to see that one of his sister's daughters looks just like Glynn's niece, Casey! Getting back to Wellington was a bit of a pain as the train was running a limited service and we managed to miss one by a matter of minutes. That meant waiting almost an hour for the next one to come along and of course it was then that the rain began to fall :-(
It's still a stange feeling to know we have family all the way out hereon the other side of the world but when they turn out to be as warmand friendly as David, it's comforting to think that if we do
Ouch!
gotta watch out for those shower trays - they're evil! move to NZ that there will already be someone here we know. Unfortunately David wouldn't let us take his photo - sorry Mary!
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