I can't quite believe it's nearly time to go...

Time has gone so quickly here. I'm leaving Wellington in less than 9 hours, and it's really quite sad! I love Wellington (as I've probably said before). I think it's because it's a mixture of old and new. It's mostly art deco and modern buildings side by side and jumbled up. And it's got hills and sea. Just beautiful, and it's a city but not mad, and not too many skyscrapers. I just love it really :)

Yesterday, it was still a bit rubbish weather, but me and Sarah got up and went to the cable cars. We were going to go the day before, but it was closed due to the power surges that happened on Monday, but luckily it was open on Friday. And to make things better, it was free on Friday as their way of saying sorry for it not being open for 3 days! Aces!

So we made it to the top, and looked around the little cable car museum, and then decided to brave the elements (it was a fair bit windy and rainy) and walk around the Botanic Gardens which are very lovely. (Just like a nice park with paths and bushes and flowers and things)
After walking through the park, on the path we were taking, we had to cross the motorway to get back into the city which was Really weird, because they had dug up half a cemetery to make way for the road. So after going through a lot of cemetery, and then over the motorway bridge, we then came to more graves, next to the path and large office blocks. Very weird.
We then went past the Beehive (the newer parliament buildings) and then came back to the backpackers to drop some stuff off to go to lunch and then SouNZ in the afternoon. My map reading skills Completely failed on me at this point, because even though we were on Abel Smith Road, which is where we were supposed to be, we had gone right instead of left! Oopsy. But anyway, we found the SouNZ HQ, and I spent like an hour and a half there looking at scores and things, while Sarah just daydreamed, and then I bought a couple of scores, a couple of CDs, and a couple of transcriptions of lectures. And I totally got a CD free! Excellent!
So we came home on the bus, and then went to the iSite to see what was on performance-wise that night. Turns out there was a percussion group called Strike that had a show on a Downstage Theatre (off Courtenay Place) so we decided to see that!
It was REALLY REALLY AMAZING. They used percussion instruments like drums and cymbals and triangles and things. But they also used things like bamboo sticks, water, pieces of metal, string, and even flammable spray onto a flame. It was AMAZING. We really enjoyed it! And these 5 guys were Awesome at what they did. There was even choreography, and comedy. It was just a really really enjoyable show!

And also, the theatre was opposite the Embassy Theatre where they had all the LOTR premieres! Huzzah! And also a pub that claimed to be the 'only Welsh pub in the Southern Hemisphere' or something like that.

So today I went on an all day tour of movie locations in Wellington. In the morning, there were only two of us being taken around by the tour guide (who is a student doing computer science at Victoria University) which was nice. And we had lunch by Rivendell. The weather was SO nice today, cold, but sunny. Though all the locations by water were looking slightly different due to the water levels being high from all the rain and snow!
It's quite amazing what they did with all the locations though. Most of them are WAY WAY smaller than they appear on the screen, it's just by magic that they look bigger on the screen! :)
In the afternoon, we picked up two more people, and went to the park on Mount Victoria, where they did lots of Hobbit sequences. I saw where the 'Get off the road!' scene happened, and 'Shortcut to Mushrooms'. Which was ace! And the guy encouraged us to get some props out and re-enact the scenes. Which was HILARIOUS. :D

It was a good hour or so walking around there, and after, we went to the district of Miramar which is where all the studios are. We saw the outside of the buildings where they filmed LOTR bits in the studios, and King Kong, and where they're currently doing parts of The Hobbit (though you're obviously not allowed on the site) and went past the post-production place which is a really nice art-deco inspired building, and finally went along to Weta Workshop, and the Weta Cave where we saw a short film and walked around the shop.
OH MAN I'm excited about Tintin!!! :) I completely forgot it was coming out this year! I used to love Tintin when I was little! I was very tempted to buy one of the books, but I didn't in the end.
So after we left Weta Cave, we went back via Seatoun and around that area, past the airport, and a good surfing beach. We also stopped off and saw part of the sunset over the South Island which was really beautiful.
So coming back to town, it was funny, because the tour guide, dropped everyone off and then was supposed to be dropping me off at the backpackers, but drove past it cus we were too busy talking about uni!! So I had to say 'um, I think you drove past my stop!' and he was like 'SORRY! I've Never done that before!' Hehehehaha :) So that was fairly amusing.
So then Sarah and I went back down Courtenay Place to see what food places there were and had dinner, and then came back to the backpackers where we packed. I've had to throw two pairs of leggings out because they were just ridiculously holey, there's not point bringing them back to Britain. But even then, I swear I have more room in my bags than before!

Tomorrow we're taking the Overlander up to Auckland, which means we have to be at the Railway Station by 7.00am! But it's okay, because it's literally over the road! So I suppose I should go to sleep now as I've had a long day, and have to be up in 6 and a half hours!