Week 10: It all went South from here

Places

We are on the South Island! It’s been a week of big movements for us – we’ve come a long way. We started by driving from Taupo to Napier, where we picked up some supplies, and on to a remote free campsite at Kairakau beach. We then drove on to a spot about halfway between there and Wellington, where we stopped and camped in a free spot by a clear, cool river. The next day took us to Wellington, where we parked up in a marina and spent the weekend happily exploring this very cool city and meeting friends, old and new! On Monday we had an ungodly 4:15am wakeup to get the Cook Strait ferry over to Picton in the South Island, and headed west to Nelson.  From Nelson we moved south through the mountains, weaving our way between lakes, rivers and some pretty jagged peaks.

Weather

It has been mostly hot and sunny, although we experienced some of Wellington’s famous winds – they are ripping! Our ferry crossing was a little cloudy and some rain welcomed us to the south, but it looks good for the next week or so although the nights are colder now (this makes Lucas quite happy).

Activities

We had a couple of friends that lived in Wellington that we were able to meet up with.  They showed us typical Kiwi hospitality, showing off the beauty and culture Wellington has to offer. A group of new friends we hiked with had all been employed by Weta Workshop  – the legendary special effects company behind Lord of the Rings, and they had worked directly on the Hobbit films (as well as that, they had previously worked in Sydney on Harry Potter! (Kelly geeked out over this and felt like they were important people.) We did a couple of hikes through the greenspaces of Wellington, climbing some mountains to get a good look at the city and the fantastic beaches and hills around it.  It really amazed us that you could go on legit hikes all while being more or less inside the confines of the city.

Because the streets are so steep, the architecture in Wellington is unique for just about every house and building; they use the shape and the topography of the landscape to design each building accordingly.  It makes for a very pretty town.  We also got to watch a concert in the botanical gardens there (yes, we still love botanical gardens) with Kelly’s high school friend Roz and her beau.  It was at night and they had a psychedelic light show on through the park which provided for a very whimsical setting.  We also took the cable car up to the top of town for a very cool view.  As you can tell, we really liked the city and hope we can come back sometime.

We’ve done a lot of driving this week and it will be nice to slow down soon and do a few more activities.

Food

We met up with a friend of a friend in Wellington named Thomas, who invited us for dinner with his flat mates.  They were all just really bright, engaging folks, and they made us a dinner of corn on the cob which they bbq’ed with parmesan and lime, along with a nice stir fry and a fresh salad.  The conversation was engaging, and we left feeling like we had just left a house in the age before cellphones and internet, where roommates and friends would sit down to conversation and just talk with each other, sharing stories and swapping ideas.  It was a real friendly atmosphere and the dinner was great.

Highlights

We loved getting to see Wellington through the eyes of locals. We also went to see a really fantastic exhibition at the Museum of NZ in Wellington, which is a great resource in itself. It’s free, as museums should be, and they had a special exhibit on the ANZAC involvement in the Battle of Gallipoli. It was a very well presented narrative, with lots of technology used to communicate the terrible nature of the conflict to us. They also had huge, ultra-realistic sculptures of soldiers and other historical characters, lit dramatically with their voices projected eerily in the room. It seemed like the giants would come alive any second – Weta workshop, the film company, had made the poignant models especially for the exhibit. We came away from it thinking that it seemed like such a pointless waste of so many people’s lives; what a tragedy. Pretty bleak for a highlight we know, but interesting!

Blunders

We are still on a dry January.  That means not a drop of alcohol for the entire month.  We have now passed through the craft beer capital (Wellington) and the wine capital (Marlborough) without a drink to be had.  Some might say it is in our best interest to refrain from the drop, but right now it would sure feel good for even just a taste of beer.

Wildcard

Lucas has been trying to get his hands on a particular Canadian comic/graphic novel for Kelly for a while. While walking the hip and trendy streets of Wellington, we found a comics store – and they had the volume he wanted in stock! It was an awesome read and she is now seeking out the next one.