Catch Up! Again…

Yikes, yet again, I have fallen behind a bit. Not that this is a chore, I see it more of luxury for everyone back home, a gift you could even call it but also a good way for me to look back and remember my travels. Again I find myself in a situation trying to remember where to start and what to say about what has happened of the past nine days. It's not that nothing has happened, things have occurred and experiences have brushed across our journey, but it has been at a slower rate than the beginning leg of the trip. Because of this there has been a growing sense of restlessness in the van that has begin to transfer into frustration with the amount of 'empty days' that are on our hands. But anyway enough of that, I guess I'll dive into it and try my best not to bore you. (And I wonder why no one reads the blog…)

I guess we left off on Christmas Day, so that would mean we start off with Boxing day, something I would probably have not even mentioned, yet there was one event that on that day that took us by surprise. We left Castlepoint the night before and made it outside of Masterton, spent the night there and headed down towards Wellington and made it to the outskirts of the city, a place known as Upper Hut. There we took a few minutes to call our families and wish them Merry Christmas and ask them what Santa brought them during the night. That was followed by a brief trip to Countdown and left us in the parking lot, we all had no idea what to do or even where to go. Then a lady came over, after seeing us glaring at the map looking confused she asked if we knew where we were going? We responded with "we had no idea" because we had not even a hint of where we were going. From there she provided a prime example of Kiwi hospitality and asked us if we had showered lately or had some decent food. We stared at each other and tried to remember the last shower, the food situation was much better, we had a decent meal the past 2 days for Christmas. She then offered her home to us, said we must come over and take a shower and enjoy Christmas dinner leftovers. So we got into the van and followed her, entered her home and we ate and showered, it took a bit for her hospitality to really sink in for us. Apparently this was pretty common situation for her; to go looking for some stinky, hungry travelling backpackers and show them a home for a day. We spent the better part of the day with her and her husband trying to make a plan for where to go but also enjoy what they were giving us, showers, food, drinks, spa's, massage chairs, the works basically (I don't think they were lacking in the financial department). Then it was time to go, she pointed in the right direction and we were off, but not before saying our goodbye's and thank you's.

We made a plan to stay around Wellington, enjoy the area and spend New Years in the country's capital. We soon found ourselves avoiding Wellington until New Years and headed north on the other coast for a few days. Those few days all kind of mashed up in my memory, the cities had long, confusing names and we hoped through 3 or 4 a day. We spent some time at a medical centre, Trevor sprained his big toe and cut it, while Chris had a foreign object in his eye that needed to be removed. They got themselves patched up and got some medicine to get their boo-boos healed up. We spent the days up to New Years driving around, but mostly reading books, camping by the ocean, not putting a whole lot of effort into anything and being camper-van bums.

We finally wondered down into Windy Welly (What the locals call the capital because of the ridiculous winds that comes off the coast) on New Year's Eve and spent the day wandering the streets. I think we walked ourselves out of all energy because when night fall came we had nothing left in us to go celebrate. We were able to make it to a rest stop outside the city and spend our night away from the crowds, the parties, the people, the problems. I don't think we even stayed awake until midnight, pretty crazy New Years eh? But it did have some benefits, the starry night and sunset were strong reminders as to why we wanted to travel NZ; something not so obvious in the city.

The next pair of days after New Years were spent seeing some of what the city has to offer, for free of course. The Te Papa museum, the country's main museum, was interesting enough to keep us busy for a couple of hours but we soon got bored. But it is pretty impressive collection laid out over 6 floors for anyone who is interested in that sort of jazz, we weren't. But we were able to stumble across the Weta Caves (the company that works on the props, design, and some effect work for some major movies filmed around New Zealand.) But probably most commonly known for their work in the LOTR (Lord Of The Rings) trilogy. They had a small shop/museum that was able to keep us excited and busy for a bit of time, unfortunately the building wasn't as big as Te Papa and we ran out of things to ponder over. Still a pretty sweet visit and if your in Welly anytime soon it's worth checking out.

Gollum, Lurkz and Reepicheep at Weta Caves

Near Rivendell overlooking the river.

Trevor over looking the sunset where we spent New Years, photo below is from the same night.

The next day was spent up north again, outside the city, on a search to find some activities, didn't have much success but we were able to find the filming location of Rivendale from LOTR. And then moseyed back to the spot where we spent New Years on the ocean, met a local travelling on the road with her dog and watched a pretty mean sunset over the ocean, solid way to end our last night on the North Island.

Lates, N8