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This afternoon, we drove from Paraparauma to Wellington, which was only about an hours journey, so that wasnt too bad.(I admit, I slept for most of it, so I actually have no idea what the hell it was like, apart from when I woke up, it was raining....)
Mum and Paul had a little skirmish when we arrived, which resulted in me being asked to go for a walk whilst they "discussed the matter", which was fine, until after about 5 minutes, the bloody heavens openned their water tanks, and proceeded to give me the kind of shower that I really was not wanting!! I was soaked to the bone!! The kind of soaked to the bone, where your pants are literally dripping wet, and sticking to you, and there is water running down the top of your nose, and you are starting to seriously question wether skin is actually waterproof, or wether people just tell you that so you dont complain so much about retaining water...
So, I headed back to the car to dry off, which was conveniently situated as far away as it possibly could be.. and when I got there, realised that all my clothes were wedged unaccessibly in the boot. (great!) So, I had to take off my bloody pants and dry them in front of the car heater (which was getting to the point of over heating to the point of combustion by the time the bloody things were dry!!) and had to sit there on the back seat in just my nickers, with a towel over my lap to protect my modesty from any randomer who could have happenned to pass by and peep into the car... I was SO not impressed!!!
Anyway, after sitting in the car for a ridiculously long time, waiting for the pants to FINALLY dry, we decided to take a walk aroung the Botanical Gardens which we happened to be parked near to. But these werent any old Botanic Gardens...oh no siree...they had a "treehouse" which had a lift in it, so you could view all the trees and gardens from above. All very interesting if you are tree inclined or a botanist, but not particularly interesting to me, Im afraid. Especially as I wasnt particularly in the best of moods since doing my bestest drowned rat impersonation...
After that, we took an uplifting trip around the "Historical Graveyard" that was just up the hill from the Gardens...hmmmm.
To be fair, some of the graves did actually belong to some relatively interesting people, (that we read about on the accompanying leaflet), but I think the final straw came when there was a sign marked "Gardenners Path....leads to gardenners shed." I was like, "they have got to be kidding...?" But it was actually serious. A 2 meter long path, leading to a corregated metal shed. Interesting....
Actually, maybe I am being a bit unfair on the whole Graveyard Trail. There was some info on the old Gravediggers' Cottage there that was quite interesting, and also some info on the intersting,(and down right frieky) way that the Wellington Motorway had been built right through the middle of the Original Graveyard, disturbing about 2,700 graves, that had been dug up and put in a common grave on the other side of the Motorway, which was joined by a bridge accross the road. But it was ok, because they wrote all the names of the people that they dug up on a big plaque and hung it on the chapel wall, nearby...
Well, thats alright then, I suppose...
After that jolly excursion, we headed down to the Ferry Port, as we had heard on the Radio that there were going to be 80mph winds hitting the area overnight, and we were concerned that this would effect our 3am journey accross the water to the South Island...
Yes, you read it right, a 3am Ferry Crossing.I wish I was kidding. We took that one, because it was loads cheaper that all the other times available (hmmm, I wander why that would be...) and so we wouldnt have to pay for a nights accommodation (because the budget is ever depleting, and we are cheapskates...)
To be honest, I was half hoping to get put on one at a reasonable hour, whilst half of me was thinking, actually, the sooner its over with, the better!! But it turned out that it was sailing, regardless, so the original plan was kept to...(damn it!)
So, it was a matter of just killing time until 3am then..oh joy. (Which is much easier said than done, surprisingly!) So, we went into a pointless exhibition of Watercolour paintings for sale (obviously with no intention whatsoever of buying any one of them), which killed all of 10 minutes...walked around the centre of the City looking for somewhere to eat....went for a Curry...(rather nice one, actually...)then went for a walk along the harbour, before stopping for a drink at one of the harbour side bars....
By this time, it was only about 10.30, and we had pretty much ran dry out of ideas...so we decided that the best thing to do would be to go and sleep in the car until it was time to aboard the Ferry of Doom at 3am...Which actually turned out to be more entertaining than originally anticipated!! Now, I never myself thought that a car park couldbe entertaining, if that is what you are thinking... but before we went to sleep, an elderly couple, in the most hideous Winebago that I have ever seen came chugging along, and parked up.....then switched parking spaces...then again...then again..
We could not for the life of us understand why they were hopping around these practically identical spaces!!(It couldnt have been for the view...there was nowt to see!!) So, by the 8th space, Mum got the camcorder out and decided to record events, which was funny enough in its own right, until the woman of the couple spied what Mum was doing, and made it known by slamming the Winebago door shut, that she was certainly not impressed by it!!!hehehe.
Crazy old Campers...you gotta love 'em!!
Then we went to sleep, anticipating the 4 hour Ferry journey that faced us.....
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