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The ferry crossing from South to North was …..long. We had planned on staying up on deck for the journey to take in the scenery and as it was a lovely sunny day so shouldn’t be a problem - except I’d forgotten my jacket and only had shorts and t-shirt on so once we got moving I got very very cold from the wind!! I managed to stick it out until we left the sounds only diving inside to use the loos and get a hot drink - which I was expecting to cost a fortune but it didn’t so was quite pleasantly surprised!! We didn’t see any dolphins on our trip but did see the house with the overhead power cables stretching from one island to the next! We were on the top deck at the time and there isn’t much clearance between the funnel of the boat and the wires! After we left the sounds and were on the open straight we headed into the warmth for some warmth and food. We watched the film that was on before heading back out on deck once we could see land again. It was still really cold on deck so we
kept popping in and out to get photos and see the land.
We hadn’t decided what campsite we were heading to once we disembarked and naively thought we would be able to stop and work it out - oh how wrong we were!! Having come from a quiet Picton and relatively uninhabited South island we were definitely not prepared for driving straight onto the main roads of Wellington City centre!! We quickly typed in an address on sat nav for one of the campsites and tried to work our way around the city traffic system!! Soon we were on a Motorway (!!!) and heading North out of Wellington city. Shortly after that we were back on State Highways rather than a motorway but still the biggest and busiest roads we have driven on for a long time!! When we arrived at the campsite we had set out for we found that it no longer existed - not as a campsite anyway!! The house and lodge were there but there wasn’t a business being run out of it anymore so time to find another one!! By the time we arrived it was getting late in the day and having been
travelling all day we didn’t really care what it was like - it was cheap and I was fed up of driving!! We were actually only about 25 minutes outside of Wellington but had managed to drive to Porirua via Upper Hutt so had gone the long way around!!
I had arranged to visit one of the local schools in a couple of days time so the following morning we headed back into Wellington to walk around the city and see some of the sights. We went straight to the Museum on the waterfront and actually arrived before it opened! We spent a few hours wandering around there and looking at all the artefacts. Some of the displays on the earthquakes and volcanoes were fantastic and quite interactive. The animal displays were great and the giant squid was fascinating. After that we headed into town for lunch and to find the Cable Car. We had about 3 maps - all of which we left in the van- so mindlessly headed off to find the cable car, just in the wrong direction!! Eventually after gong in a full circle we found the I-site and got a map. We soon found
the cable car and headed to the top to walk around the botanical gardens. Some of the sculptures in the gardens were really good but we were disappointed with the rose garden and the lack of seemingly open grass space. Luckily it was a nice sunny day without much wind so it was still a pleasant walk. Once back down we walked back to the van along the seafront. A schools boating competition had just finished and the kids were pier jumping and having a great time in the sun!
As the school I was due to visit was close to the campsite we’d stayed at the night before we headed back there, it was cheap and close to where we needed to be. The school I went to visit s on a really old site but luckily their new school is ready to move into next term so they are currently in the process of boxing everything up and sorting stuff out. The staff were fantastic and gave me some great information. Similar to the other schools I’ve visited they have their secondary students with high needs on the base site with satellite classes based at some of
the surrounding schools - I really must find out how these classes work as I still have no idea!! Looking at the drawings for the new school it is going to be fairly similar to Mary Rose, in that all the classes are one side of the corridor and all the specialist rooms are the other side. The big differences are that the corridor is curved and that they do not have many specialist rooms. But it is going to be markedly better than the premises they are in and will allow them to take on more students.
After leaving the school we headed north not really knowing where we are going so are currently stopped in Palmerston North for the night!!
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