September - November 2008

September - November 2008
Route: From Bangkok overland through south Thailand to Malaysia, seeing Kuala Lumpa and Singapore). Singapore --- Perth (I don't know whats in Perth! Must be something to do there though). Perth --- Brisbane (then travel overland to Sidney). Sidney --- Auckland (travel round New Zealand's islands probably by road). Auckland --- Tahiti (laze about on South Pacific beaches).

10 November 2008

Wellington

Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand, nestled at the south end of the North Island. It’s a shame it’s not connected better to the largest city, Auckland. You’d think it should be… Unfortunately the rail service here has more or less become defunct – only three trains a week run between the two most major cities in winter! So road is the only option, meaning a 12 hour bus ride. Or 13-14 hours if your bus breaks down… Great.

Anyway, a very long time after leaving Auckland we checked into a cosy little hotel in central Wellington with a very friendly owner. And the following day after a lot of compensatory sleep we started to explore the town! Like all the cities we’ve recently visited Wellington is on the coast. The bulk of the town centre lies just uphill from the water, and across from the working harbour. Above the CBD some hills rise swiftly, and similar to Hong Kong they have an old-fashioned tram that ascends from the city centre to the summit. OK, it’s not quite such a dramatic peak, but its still a fun ride with good views from the botanical gardens at the top. We were really lucky – as we left the tram a fine rain started to fall over the town below while we remained in bright sunlight. This led to very weird lighting and a fantastic rainbow over Wellington. The walk back down to town was equally nice – someone had marked out a scenic route through a series of pretty gardens with some pink flowers spray-painted onto the path. We’d never have found such a pleasant route if we had simply followed our map: even Gary had to admit (probably for the first time in his live) that the flowers were a good idea!

But unfortunately our luck with weather did not hold. And after a lovely walk back to the hotel along the waterfront it conspired to rain for most of the rest of our time in Wellington. Although I’m not entirely sure how rain was possible as it felt as if the temperature was well below zero! We managed a quick dash along the Oriental Promenade (another waterfront walk) the next day before having to run into a café for shelter. Fortunately they did a good BLT and chicken caser salad!

What worries us is that our next move is south, across the Cook Straights by ferry to Picton, the major port of the South Island. And from there we’ll be hiring a car and driving even further south to stay in Christchurch for a few days. Before heading even further south… we’re getting near to Antarctica here! We thought we’d be catching nice sunny springtime weather in New Zealand when we planned this trip – we haven’t got warm enough coats for this! I wonder if when we reach the snowline Gary will still wear his sandals!



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