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Dear All,
When we last reported from New Zealand we had reached Napier and unfortunately I had to cut it short as we had already spent 3 hours online and we were running out of credit again.
We absolutely love the mountain cabin in Whakapapa in the Tongariro National park. It was lovely to have a little home to our selves... it was funny though seeing the volcanoe eruption poster and what we were supposed to do if siren was sounded. It brings it home that New Zealand is actually on lots of volcanoes, dormant and live!
Napier for us was lovely but due to it being out of season it was pretty quiet. We did however buy some lovely pottery from a local artist. The temperature that night got down to -2 so we were very glad to have our little heater on all night.
Next day we headed down to Wellington (New Zealands Capital) this took most of the morning and we arrived to have our first disappointment of the Top 10 campsites.. it was located in an industrialised area, so we choose a B n B out of the AA Guide. Again we should have gone with the recommendations of the Qual Mark as this turned out to be a little worse for wear and we decided to leave and find somewhere else.
We met Luke and Jen that night who Katie met in Ecuador. We met them at The Matterhorn a lovely little quirky bar where we had drinks, caught up and shared some chips. Luke had to go to Hockey but Jen took us around the local area and we had a Malaysian meal (which was yummy!)
Next day in the capital, we had a full english, recommended by Jen, then tried to find the Cable Car. We managed to miss this completely so we headed for the old St Pauls church, only to find that unfotuantely there was a funeral going on so we could go in and see the amazing interior. We finally found the Cable car and took it up to the botanic gardens and walked through the grounds.
After lunch where we seemed to be the only ones eating a whole pizza each, we headed to the Te Papa (Museum of New Zealand). This place is amazing and full of interesting things to see and do. We loved the Awesome forces section all about the volcanoes and earthquakes. Did you know that there was a big earthquake off the coast of Fjordland (South West New Zealand) 2 weeks ago and they are having massive aftershocks still almost everyday.... todays measured 5.2. We really hope that they calm down before we reach this area.
We fetched Molly and headed over to the ferry port. Being out of season it was pretty quiet but the ferry was very smooth... wouldn't even know we were in the water. I wanted to watch a film but when I found out it was Star Trek I changed my mind, so instead did some sleeping.
Last night we staying in Picton, we got up early and headed down an amazing road to toward Kaikoura. It is lovely weather here, beautiful and sunny! The Campsite is 5* so we should have a good night. We have booked Whale watching for tomorrow morning so we are quite excited about this.
Keep looking at the blog and sending us your messages.
Love Katie and James xx
p.s. we bought some lovely xmas presents today.
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