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Wellington - 26th February 2009
After being woken by a tractor full of tourists being hauled along the beach a few feet from the spaceship and paying 50 cents for a reasonably warm shower; we breakfast and are ready to drive on the 400 or so kilometres to Wellington. In Australian terms, this is a pretty short drive - doable before lunch... in New Zealand though, we reckon that this will take us all day - if it's not down to the winding roads themselves, we've learned that there is guaranteed to be a lovely view to stop and look at every five minutes.
Just before dark, we arrive at Upper Hutt, about 40 minutes' drive from the centre of Wellington, but the nearest, cheapest campsite. Dave is pleased because there are several cats to play with, all of whom are immediately best friends with him (I think because he talks to them in their language... fuss and food).
We venture in to the city and find some cheapish parking at $18 a day, and head to the tourist i-site to sort out our ferry crossing to the South Island, get a coffee and use the internet. As we type away on the computers, we watch a group of six people doing their training for a Segway sightseeing trip.
A Segway looks a bit like a big cotton reel with a scooter handle; you stand on the platform above the wheels, and some kind of gyroscopic wizardry allows you to propel forwards, backwards or around in circles, miraculously without falling over, all at potentially a very brisk walking pace. We laugh a bit, before admitting to each other that we're jealous - we plan to book one of these Segway tours ourselves when we return to Wellington again from the South Island, providing we're not all spent out.
After mooching around the many camping and hiking equipment shops to check out stuff for South America (we've convinced ourselves that there won't be shops there), we buy a real-life full sized towel each from a department store - those tiny travel towels are great, but when it comes to hopping out of a campsite shower on a cold morning, nothing beats wrapping a huge, fluffy bath towel around one's shoulders. We plan to jettison them before we fly off again, but decide that at just over a dollar a week each for the next six weeks, they're worth it, even if they're only temporarily ours!
Arriving back at the campsite that evening, we are suspicious when several groups of teenagers walk up to our pitch, in a dead end, and hop over the fence behind it. Feeling vaguely territorial, and a bit curious, we peer over the fence to see what's going on on the other side. It turns out that someone's parents have gone away, and every adolescent in the neighbourhood is around for a party - to a house approximately thirty metres away from where we are sleeping: it has all of the windows and doors flung open, and within minutes is blaring music at top volume. Now, fair enough, it's Friday night, but the party doesn't start until 9pm and being in a small town so close to a campsite where everyone there has paid specifically for the privilege of getting a peaceful night's sleep, we can see from our own experience that the party isn't going to last long. However, as a precaution against the same teens, now inebriated, walking back past the spaceship at an ungodly hour and deciding that it's amusing to bang on the window, we drive off to another pitch on the far side of the campsite, and feel deep empathy for the couple next to us who have to uproot their tent and all of its accoutrements in order to be able to get away from the noise a bit too.
Safely relocated, we relax and watch the fun unfold, feeling very old and past it, as we say things to each other like "gosh, isn't that music rubbish, there isn't even a tune", and "I know it's Friday night, but it's getting late". I drift off to sleep, whilst Dave ends up going out to chat to our new neighbours over a few beers. At least one of us is still a bit rock and roll.
Sure enough, the next morning we find out from the security guard that the police shut the party down before midnight, and aside from a few beer bottles on the front garden of the house involved, there isn't much evidence that anything ever happened. Next time kids, do it quietly, or dive in to a bit of that fabulous countryside that you've got tonnes of over here and do it somewhere too far away for anyone to hear!
Our tourist task for today is to visit the WETA Cave, the public part of the WETA Workshop, home of the special effects people who worked their magic on the Lord of the Rings films, as well as with Peter Jackson on some of his early films such as Meet the Feebles and Heavenly Creatures, and also on tonnes and tonnes of new stuff, most of which we'd never heard of. We were a bit disappointed that we didn't get to see any creating in action, but I think they'd anticipated that, as they screen a DVD showing what they get up to inside the workshop, and explaining that they can't just have everyone traipsing around their top-secret projects. I did get to meet very convincing models of Gollum and an Oracai though, which was definitely worth the trip.
Post WETA, we drive on in the pouring rain to Red Rocks, hoping to glimpse a seal colony. However, the track at the end is four-wheel-drive only, so we settle for a walk up and down the beach, turning our noses up at the stinky and surprisingly meaty looking bull kelp seaweed. It's still piddling it down though, so we shelter around the side of the toilets, which unexpectedly proves to be the home of a surprisingly informative free exhibition about the rock formations and coastline in the area.
Arriving back at camp, we relocate to our original pitch, and settle in for a peaceful evening - the noisiest thing tonight is the cicadas!
On our last day in Wellington before the ferry, we decide to visit the Te Papa museum in the city. However, our mistake is attempting to park on site at the museum - after a 35 minute queue around the badly designed underground carpark, we are no nearer to finding a space, and have already clocked up a couple of dollars in parking fees without the benefit of even a glimpse inside the thing we have come to see. Feeling a little frustrated, and tempted to give up altogether and go elsewhere, we finally squeeze into a space and brave the howling wind to enter the museum's doors.
Now, we think this may just be us, but despite the superb write up, we found the exhibitions here a little confusing, and the whole place a bit difficult to navigate. On top of that, it was rubbish weather and a Sunday, meaning that every family with small children within a 300km radius had turned up to beef up their knowledge on all things Kiwi.
That said, the exhibit showcasing the giant squid (which included a 3D film), was amazing, and the general feel of the building was of light and space. However, after three or four hours inside, we felt like we'd covered all of the free stuff pretty well, and went off for a walk around Wellington, deciding to leave the car where it was for now.
We walked through town, and hopped on the vernicular railway up the steep hill to the Botanical Gardens. After a brief walk around in the cold and wind, we decided to go back down to the main street, where we walked to the controversial (not sure why) Beehive and other parliament buildings. The contrast between new and old architecture works well, and we really like the feel of Wellington - it's all squished into a small space between the harbour and the hills behind it, and has thousands of pretty wooden clapperboard houses climbing into the trees as you drive in and out. However, it's time for us to drive back to Upper Hutt and get an early night - our ferry to the South Island leaves at 8.30am tomorrow.
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