Wellington

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We get up and have breakfast at the hotel before heading to the Te Papa museum. It is the official museum of New Zealand and we didn’t have time to see it the last time we were in Wellington. We spend several hours at the Te Papa then leave to find a place for lunch. We locate a nice little restaurant called Hummingbird that has chilled gazpacho with avocado bruschetta. It is a wonderful change from the standard NZ fare. As we are waiting for our food Michael is reading the drink menu and see shots of Havana Club rum. We are curious if this is real Cuban rum as we would never be able to sample it in the US. The bartender shows us the bottle and is has a stamp on it declaring, “Cuban government’s warranty for Cuban rum”. We ask him where there is a bottle store so we can buy some to drink for the rest of our trip.
We enjoy our leisurely lunch and walk to the bottle store to seek Havana Club rum. The clerk at the bottle store tells us it is the finest rum he has ever tasted. We buy a bottle and decide we will take it with us to Todd’s tonight. We walk by an Internet café and spend some time sending e-mails, then go back to our hotel to put on some warmer clothes since it gets a little chilly after the sun goes down.
We walk to the train station to meet Todd and Fiona. They arrive and take us back to Crofton Downs. We stop by their restaurant, which is closed on Monday, to pick up a few things for dinner then go to their house. They have a lovely view of the harbor and we sit outside while Todd cooks for us on the barbecue. They have a Mancoon cat that reminds us of Loren and Michelle’s cats. The food is wonderful and it is great to get caught up on Todd’s life over the last 15 years. We stay too late and Fiona drives us back to our hotel. We have agreed to take the train out to their restaurant the next night for dinner.

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