Day 11 – Wellington, Wed 30th September 2009

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Today is a day of travel so not much going on, set alarm for 7, and got up at 8 - Uncle Donald would be unimpressed with that efficiency! The weather upon inspection from our hotel window proved to be what I’d describe as; miserable squally rain with wind. Am I back at home? Nope, the yellow buses with the pantograph confirmed we’re still in Wellington. The flight is at 3pm so we’ve just a few hours this morning to see what the place has to offer - noting the weather, bang goes the cable car trip and resolution of the meaningless argument last night, was looking forward to that to view the city, never mind.

A decent breakfast down, we head out around 9am. We head towards the government buildings for the first part of the stroll as we’ve no real plan and it seems close. Within 5 minutes we find the parliament and government buildings where the familiar Beehive building is closest. The windy rain combination renders the hotel supplied umbrella relatively useless. The building itself was nice but not quite the Gaudi cathedral or Notre Dame for that manner. However, it reflects how young this country is. There are 3 buildings, the late 90’s familiar beehive building where the operational government are based, the parliament and old library building. The latter two are really nice in contrast to the bizarre modern structure. We jump inside for a quick look and to escape the rain, spontaneously, we decide to do the free 1 hour long tour as the rain is relentless outside anyhow. The tour starts in the beehive, works it way through the library ending in the main chambers of the parliament as the holiday recess was on. Nice to see the main chamber, each member has plenty of space and allocated seating unlike some other parliaments and its style is very close to the House Of Commons in many ways.

After the parliament tour, we take in a few shops - nothing major bought. We check out around 12, and take the hire car around the bay towards the airport. The road is scenic albeit short, we see the Interislander ferry sat in the bay, it looks to what can only be described as ‘scared to go out’, sitting at right angles to perceived direction of travel. Probably awaiting clearance as we awoke this morning to the news of the Samoan psunami, the wind is whipping up to - a bumpy flight ahead????? We arrive and drop the car of with no hassle and sit in the lounge killing 2 hours prior to loading up on duty free for leg III - Melbourne. We arrive at Melbourne on Wed 4pm local time on a very smooth flight, have an easy pass through customs and ‘big Craig’ awaiting us with open arms. We duly kiss him hello and cruise back to the house through the city in the new Holden jeep.

The city looks nice at first glance however we’re only on the motorway - we’ll find our tomorrow as we plan to visit. We’re at the house in about an hour from Tullamarine, and Shelly has made a lovely roast lamb for us - yummy. We get to meet the new arrival, their beautiful baby Kayla Ann and we have some lovely food. After a few drinks, it’s an early night for 3 of us noting we’re 3 hours ahead and they are tired. Craig is left awake waiting for the midnight feed.

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