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Day 162, 163 -Wellington, North Island - Monday 26th, Tuesday 27th March 2012
I think Soph in her previous blog mentioned that we were now living in a hostel car park and that the hostel was a tad basic and shabby!? I have another word for it -dump! Not only was it a dump (or El Dumpio in Spanish!) but it had some strange guests; I'll come back to them in a minute. For some reason we decided to stay two nights at "El hostel Dumpio!" and having survived last night we woke up today with the sun out, smiles on our faces and a secret hope that Wellington would be good. It didn't let us down! For a capital city it's pretty laid back and not very busy so we wondered around the streets doing some window shopping and enjoying the sun. We stopped at a café right on the waterfront for a bowl of coffee, yes you heard right, a bowl of coffee, shared a sandwich and raced each other to see who could eat the most of the one muffin we bought. After the blueberry and chocolate muffin, we walked round the harbour towards the centre of town and as we did Soph spotted a stingray, it was massive so Soph took a few shots (with her camera, not a gun!) then we made our walk up the hill. We went to the beehive which is a beehive like building for government workers. Then we tried to find the cities cable car system, we got pretty lost so asked a passer-by to point us in the right direction. The little old lady we asked then proceeded to take us there personally, including a short cut through the Novotel Hotel. She also pointed out a sushi bar that sells off all of its sushi after 3pm for $1 - sweet!! Anyway, once at the cable car we paid $3 each to get us to the top of the city and right in the centre of the Botanical Gardens - they we beautiful. We got the ticket one-way so we walked all the way downhill back into town and it just so happened to be 3pm!! So we bought 12 different types of sushi and headed back down to the waterfront for an early dinner. After chilling in the afternoon sun till 6pm, we headed back to "El Dumpio" hostel. As we were back and our PC had no battery we decided to sit in the TV room and charge our PC with a coffee. Since we have been travelling and staying in many hostels I've noticed one main thing; the worst hostels are the ones that have live-in guests. By that, I mean they have people actually living there full time, 365 days a year. They either stay on a discounted rate because they are there in peak season and non-peak, or they work for their board. Anyway, whilst in the pitch black TV room (not even sure they had a light), one of the live in workers, a 50 year old white bloke with dreadlocks, changes the channel. Not happy with his selection, he changes it again to which a voice shouts out "Pick a f##king channel bruv!"…… Luckily our PC was now charged and we headed back to our camper in the car park for an early night, but on our way back another live-in guy stops us to ask if we left our iPod in the bathroom, we said we hadn't to which he told us that there was a thief loose in the hostel….. Ok! Night - bed!
We woke early this morning, about 8am and were in a hurry to check out. Usually we check out about ten minutes after we should but today we were out just over an hour before we should have been. When I walked in the reception area to check out, the owner was sitting there. Ah, I thought this should be interesting. I said "oh, morning, thanks ever so much for having us, we are leaving now". He said "Ayyyee, you what?" So I repeated what I said, to which he nodded, frowned and turned to walk away. "Oh bye then!" I shouted as the door slammed - I love this place!! Anyway we drove away from El Dumpio with a tear in our eye and headed back into town.
We parked up at the Wellington waterfront and had breakfast and tea whilst using the free government WI-FI. This is the first time we have had free WI-FI and it was pretty good which is surprising as NZ's internet to date has been pretty awful. We then took a quick look around Te Papa museum as it was free and we wanted to learn more about the Maori culture and then popped into the supermarket to stock up on food - I also bought some pink fluffy socks as Soph was feeling a bit down (I think she misses El Dumpio already!). With all that excitement done, we started of five hour drive to Hawkes Bay and the town of Napier. Once there, knackered and hungry we parked up on the beach with what looked like a nuclear power plant behind us! Well, lots of smelly smoke and huge chimneys. We didn't care, so we ate and slept!
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