hey all, apologies for the lack of blogging since near enough the start of my trip, oops! seeing as i haven't much time to blog thought i'd compromise by cutting it down to bite-sized chunks of countries instead of every single place i've been to and will sort out a better version either when i'm in Oz or back home!

so, arrived in wellington on friday, start of the weekend and a day before halloween!!! not planning to do much here as we've been here before and want to rest our tired little legs for a bit..... didn't do much on the first day we got here, found out that our hotel is actually up some steps (75 to be exact!!!) which was fun with our backpacks on our backs! after being stuck in river vally for the night (tell you about that later...) we needed to do our laundry, badly! but alas we found that there are NO laundrettes in wellington city centre and no place to do laundry in our hotel! absolutely ridiculous!

next day found the only laundrette in town which was miles away from our hotel and has waste half the day doing that, lovely! not much else done apart from going on the net for a while uploading pics!

today we went to the sunday farmers market down by the waterfront and found out why it was so majorly popular. turns out that its MUCH cheaper that the supermarket, freaky i know! back home its normally the other way around! had a yummy pistachio and chocolate croissant for breakfast from there, mmmmmm.

then off to zealandia wildlife park. now when i say wildlife park, don't get images of lions and monkeys and other exotic animals that you get back home in british wildlife parks. no over here it means its a conservation area and full of native wildlife so basically for NZ that means lots of birds! thousands in fact and we spotted quit a few different kinds, even a stranded baby duckling! also saw said duckling run away from a man and dropped off the ledge of a very tall suspension bridge!!! but all was well, still heard the poor little mite after the big fall! we were intending to have an easy day.... but wandered onto a hiking trail that took us round and round in circles, up high, steep hills and back down again. man, our thighs were BURNING!!! luckily completed the 50min tack in 45mins, i know not THAT impressive but its good when you're actually not expecting to go hiking through mud!!!

all that walking on a nearly empty stomache was NOT fun and we were ravishing by the time we got back to town. i was starting to feel faint on the last bit of our trek!!! but we found our way to Cuba St our home from last time around and went back to a restaurant we'd been to before. such yummy food and for desert we had cinnamon doughnuts with melted chocolate dipping sauce, HEAVEN!!!! perfect end to the day! keep you updated later!