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A warm welcome to one and all!!!!
Thankyou for taking the time out of your busy schedule to read our blog and I only hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I'm sure I will writing it! :)
Right where did we get up to the other day? Ahh yes.....
Day 31: I would like to tell you that we had another action packed day in Wellington today but alas, I cannot. We did absolutely nothing! Well not until the evening anyway. We packed our day full of the essentials such as eating, doing washing and watching TV. This is until about half 5 when we walked down to Base backpackers and met what was left of our somewhat depleted group. We knew that the day would have to comprise of at least one outing otherwise we might as well be home. And so this evenings entertainment was to go grab some dinner, watch a film and go out for a few drinks. The only film that we all wanted to see was 28 weeks later and so after a rather average dinner we headed next door (literally) to see what we could see. 28 weeks later.... hmmmm.... worth seeing????? probably. Should it've had a better ending?? Definitely. I believe that it could well have been a rather fantastic film had it have had a much better ending and if it had been slightly better in general. "O well..." we thought, "we'll just have to go and have a few drinks and a good time out in Wellington. Little did we know, however, that the Queen's birthday is highly respected over here and so.... nothing was open! We tried our luck in a few of the places we had been to the night before but no-one was about and so we headed back to bas for a few drinks and then back home to bed for about 1! Useless! Our last night out with the lot from North Island and we couldn't go anywhere..... anyway, on to......
Day 32: We had foolishly decided that we should get up nice and early and meet the only one of our bus who had not left yet to go to Te Papa (the NZ national museum of everything). By early I mean that we had to meet him about 10 or something but now we were used to sleeping in the early call was not too much fun. We walked in again as well and so got some early morning(for us) exercise. The walk does seem to be getting shorter (or are we getting fitter? you can judge for yourselves when we get back).
Te Papa was, had we been in a bit more of a curious mood, a very good museum and I'm sure if we really wanted to we could have spent a whole day in there. However, the kids stuff and a really good murder mystery exhibition (again meant for kids) suited us just fine for the day. We skipped through everything else but these were the only exhibitions of any intellectual value, to be honest, and so naturally had to take up most of our time! We happened upon a little cafe off the beaten track known as Subway? I think that was what it was called, anyway. Certainly one worth checking out should you ever happen to be in Wellington. After this it was time to try and find a jumper that would hopefully keep us warm for the treacherous south island weather. This failed, however and so it was time to head back for a wonderfully prepared meal (by us! shock gasp!) and to watch the Queen. Very good film with some absolutely brilliant actors who have no doubt acted with the best (possibly at CFT)
Day 33: Today we had planned to go to the zoo. So, as no doubt you will be aware how prepared and driven we are to get up early, we didn't set our alarms and managed to be both up and ready by around 12-1. We decided to give the zoo a miss for today and watch the other film we had rented last night: Blood Diamond. Again a rather good film and well done to Mr Di Caprio... a rather stirling preformance, sir! Today had from the start been ear-marked for another sitting around day and so after watching the special features we partook in our only exercise for the day; a leisurely stroll down to the Video shop and the Supermarket in Newtown. After grabbing all the supplies we went home to make our next culinary venture: Baked potato with chicken, sweetcorn and salad cream/mayo according to preference. Pretty darn good!
Day 34: We wanted to go to parliament today and so we thought we should probably get up a bit earlier so that we could get down there, as it is a good 3/4 hour walk. Still only got there around 1ish but we were quite happy with that. We had a free tour round the parliament of NZ which was pretty good and interesting and lasted for a whole hour which we were quite impressed with; it being free and all! Richard had yet another contact (private secretary to one of the Minister's: Rt Hn Nanaia Mahuta) who worked in the Beehive (part of parliament) and so we managed to have a private audience with him, which was rather good. We asked a few questions and found out his minister was the one who dealt with customs and Youths, so we were in good hands. All in all a splendid experience! Next we thought that as we were over this side of town we should have a look up the cable car. We went up and it had a pretty good view so we thought we might stay for a bit. They've got the Botanical gardens up there and so we had a quick look round there before heading down to the best bit of the trip: the Park!!! It was rather an awesome park and so with very few kids to get in our way we tore round the park which included swings, slides, a climbing wall and best of all, the zip wire! A good time was had by all and so when we decided we should probably leave before we got caught or squashed a little person, we left with hung heads. We bought some jumpers on the way back and so have no fear, people, we shall be warm! We made dinner AGAIN tonight. Made is only really half true though. We bought a pizza which we cooked with some garlic bread and then had some salad left over from the evening before. I did however try my hand at making something properly though and so I cut up some potatoes and made some little potato things. I don't really know what they would be called but I shallow fried them with seasoning etc and they were GORGEOUS, if I do say so myself! Watched another film and that was about it!
Day 35: Today we had tickets to go see the rugby and so we were rather excited. We did have to delay our excitement somewhat though as we actually did go to the zoo. So short of scaring the monkey's etc we thought we would leave the cheering for another couple of hours. As we have become what some might call zoo connoisseurs, we rated this one with expert eyes and were impressed on all accounts. They had monkeys and so I was fairly happy but they also had quite a few Lions and some Kangaroo's so it was all pretty good. Apart from when we got round to the Gibbons section and this complete idiot of a man was banging on the window and throwing apple over for the animals to eat. The Gibbons then came and banged on the window and I quite wanted them to break through and the maul the guy where he stood. Either that or one of the lions to be shown straight to him by one of the keepers. Anyway, he moved on after a little while and my anger subsided. We saw a Spider show as well which was o.k., apart from they decided that it would be a good idea to invite all the people up to the tables where they were showing the spiders so no-one could see them. Me and Lamming made our escape because we couldn't see anything so it was a bit pointless. We then got the bus into town and made our way over to the Westpac stadium. We had been included in a very big sting operation in which we were the main agents. Operation: you're not 25! commenced at around 1745 and ended at around 1845. In this time we had been round with one of Richard's people in the stadium and had managed to catch about 5 out of 26 not checking for ID. We were commended at the end of this deadly operation with a couple of beers each and we made our way to our seats with fish and chips in hand. Our seats were right down on the goal line and so we could pretty much see everything as long as it happened down our end. The atmosphere was pretty good and we got the game we expected; the French getting a good thrashing from the All Blacks. A very good stadium and even though it wasn't the most exciting of matches, the game was well worth going to.
Day 36: We got up at a fairly unrespectable time today. Maybe 1? Fine by me though and thought we were heading out for brunch when Richard got a call on his mobile inviting him over to lunch at a friends. We headed out to a supermarket thing to find some wine and other essentials and then went round to our host for the day. We spent our day eating and drinking and then watched "see no evil" which was a pretty good but slightly depressing film. Nice relaxing day.
That was our week in Wellington, pretty much and so now it is back to slumming it in hostels. The hostels we've been in have actually been pretty good but compared to a house with free internet and consistently warm showers theyre not really much. We can't wait to move onto the South Island now though see what else NZ has to offer us.
Hope everyone is doing brill back in the UK or wherever you are reading this from.
I know this has been a pretty long one but we had to catch up.
Lots of Love to you all
James/F
XxXxX
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