New Zealand

Well. Arrived last night at 11.30 thinking “excellent my plane is early , I’ll get some sleep tonight" only to be annoyingly pulled aside by customs, my bags searched, various possessions swabbed and finally after much fucking around, and pointless, but to be fair, mild mannered questioning, I finally had a piece of coral that had already travelled through 3 countries, confiscated, leaving me to repack my bag which took AGES as there is a very precise system which it has to be done by to ensure certain things stay flat whilst others are near enough the top to be accessed easily when entering a pitch black dorm at 2am so as not to disturb other residents. FFS

Anyway. Finally arrived at the hostel at 1 am.. Not feeling tired any more. Went out for a calming beer. And got to bed around 2 when I realised that the beer and accompanying music was not calming me.

Got up this morning at 9.. Just couldn’t get up any earlier to find a man standing in his pants at the foot of my bunk. I had booked an all girls dorm so was pretty annoyed, (but this did explain the smell of feet)

Organised the right room for tonight, and went out to explore Wellington.

Had a bacon (?!!) bagel (so wrong, but yet so right) on my way to visit Te Papa, the museum of New Zealand which was really excellent. Fr one thing I arrived just in time to see a great show by the New Zealand Ballet company “A day in the life of” which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was going to nip up and tell them about my trophy achievement but thought the better of it in the end

After a great show, where you could ask the dancers questions at the end, I walked to the end of the building to be greeted by one of the most spectacular views I have ever seen from a city. It was sunny but cold puff course, as I looked out over the giant bay of wellington. White horses sprinted across the turquoise water in front of the distant mountains, where you could just about make out snow capped peaks. To my right, the neat little marina highlighted the water further whilst little blocky houses clung to the steep hills behind them amongst the deep green foliage and to my left, the city with it’s gleaming glass buildings and grid like order and wide promenades shone and sparkled happily under tumultuous clouds and blue blue sky.

Am having o describe this in so much detail as I completely forgot to take my camera so I am unable to share this beauty with you in any better way.

The Museum is also home to the preserved body of a Colossal Squid, which I remember watching a documentary on so it was great to see it up close, though it really wasn’t as colossal as I was expecting. It was only abut 10 ft long, and I was expecting at least 3 times that, however it was still pretty cool – it has the largest eye of any mammal, about the size of a foot ball. It should however only be known as the “quite big squid” as I feel sure something should be over 20 ft long to be called “colossal”

Also found out that NZ used to be completely covered in bush; now with more than 4m people in the country it barely covers ¼ of the country any more.

Had to go against all my principals and go into a starbucks to use their wifi (there seems to be less of it here than in Asia..... ridic!) Planned my next few days, and booked stuff......

Tomorrow I plan to visit WETA which is the museum funded by Peter Jackson which has loads of LOTR paraphernalia, and memorabilia, as well as that from other sci fi films. Can’t wait for that. Then I ma going to get the cable car to...wherever it goes, and back again, to see the views, and then the next day I get an early ferry across to the south island to Picton and a bus straight from there to Kaikoura.

There I shall swim with dolphins, however bloody cold it is, and stay in a YHA place which sounds OK. And then bus it on to Christchurch.

Early night tonight I think!

Well that’s what I’d planned, but ended up getting drunk on free champagne with the girls from my dorm and some bloke called Jules.... I’d better get up before breakfast finishes!