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Hello! It's been a week since we've had a travelblog, so bear with me - there's lots to tell.
We left Napier on Monday morning in pouring rain - so heavy that we considered stopping till it eased off, but then it eased off and we drove across very dull flat countryside in very dull grey weather. We stopped in the (dull, grey) town of Palmerston North for lunch - very uninspiring town so we didn't stay long. We were heading to Wanganui to visit my friend Margaret, who I worked with at Auckland City Council (in fact, it was her job I was doing as she was seconded to another post), but she left ACC the week after me to relocate to Wanganui. They moved into their new house 3 days before we visited (we were their first overseas visitors!) and we felt a bit bad about landing ourselves on them, but it was lovely to catch up with Margaret and meet her husband Gary. We had a lovely dinner and great company, and slept in the comfiest bed since we moved our of our flat in Auckland! They also have a dog and a cat, so we were
The Queen Charlotte Sound
The ferry from Wellington has to get through that little gap... fine in good weather! able to get our animal fix playing with them.
On Tuesday we were up bright and early to drive to Wellington. The backpackers we had booked turned out to be a bit scuzzy, so one of our first tasks was to find somewhere else for our second and third nights. That job done, we headed to Te Papa, New Zealand's national museum. It's only about 7 years old, and is fantastic! Who says that museums have to be dull and boring - not Te Papa! The section on earthquakes and volcanoes was brilliant (well, NZ does have plenty of those) and I wished I could have taken all the children I have taught earthquakes and volcanoes to to the museum. We managed to spend the whole afternoon at Te Papa before finding a really nice Indian restaurant for dinner.
The rest of our time in Wellington was spent soaking up the city's atmosphere. We moved into a much nicer hostel, drank lots of coffee in a few of the numerous coffee shops that the city has to offer, went up to the botanic gardens in the cable car (a city institution apparently), visited parliament, and generally wandered around.
The Beehive
NZ's parliament - cost more and took longer than the Scottish Parliament! For Graeme, the capital city was overshadowed somewhat by the fact that Star Wars came out when we were there, and we took advantage of one of the many cinemas to see it. Now he wants to see it again on the south island!
Friday morning saw us up early to get the 9.30 Interislander ferry to Picton on the south island. Apparently it's one of the most beautiful ferry journeys in the world, but we'll just have to believe the posters as the mountains were obscured by low cloud and drizzle... We had a lovely lunch in Picton, then got back in our car and drove to Kaikoura, about 2 hours away. Kaikoura used to be famous for crayfish (which are like lobsters), but now it's famous for whale watching, and that's why we (and most other tourists) were going.
Kaikoura is on a wee peninsula into the Pacific, and across the bay are more splendid mountains - what a view there must be from our hostel when it's not cloudy! The clouds didn't stop the whale watching from going ahead, and this morning we were loaded onto a boat with lots of other tourists in search
Margaret and Gary
who kindly looked after us in Wanganui. of male sperm whales. There was a 'seasickness warning' on this morning's trip, and my god it was bumpy! For the first hour is was a bit dull to be honest, there's only so much looking at the view you can do, and we would get reports of whale sitings only for the whale not to appear. Eventually we got a report of a positive siting and off we went - and this time there it was! The whale was a lot less exciting that Graeme and I expected it to be - it just sat on the surface, riding the waves and blowing water from it's blow-hole ocassionally. The more exciting part of the trip was when we were heading back into shore we came upon a pod of dusky dolphins - there were hundreds of them circling the boat for a good 15 minutes, playing, jumping, rolling in the water - awesome!
I think we're leaving Kaikoura tomorrow and heading for Hanmer Springs in the mountains, about 2 hours from here, then up to the Abel Tasman National Park to do some kayaking. I'll do another update during the week if we have anything to report.
Till the next time!
Jo and Graeme x
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