Day 151 Friday 5th February 2010

Stacey says

Transferring from Taupo to New Zealands' capital, Wellington, an epic 8 hour trip on the coach! We passed two of its famous mountains, which I'd spotted in a Lord of the Rings photo in a mag. We then cruised into Wellington City via a stop to the top of Mt Victoria which is a great Lookout spot to see the city. It was a pretty long coach journey for us today with (Mad Murray a previous coach driver we had) playing out his country classics on the speakers the whole way. It was the Rugby Sevens on this weekend, arriving into Wellington we saw some flowers walking down the street, followed by some sumos, cave girls, Daniel sons, Pirates, sailors, chiefs, sheiks. Absolutely everyone was dressed up in fancy dress outfits which could be anything and everything! There wasn't a normal person in sight! After our long journey we decided we fancied some drinks tonight, so we got some beers and had a few with Chris and Lisa, who were on our Magic bus, and headed out to some bars. It was surreal to see the whole town making an effort to dress up, one of our favourites being a the guy from the Hangover with the baby. We headed to Coyote bar, then Shooters, over to Molly Malones, our friends crashed and burned so we walked back to YHA with them, and decided we wanted to stay out and went back to a bar and danced a bit more!

Day 152 Saturday 6th February 2010
Stacey says
Waitangi Day today! New Zealands national day for when a treaty was signed to give the Maori people equal rights. We had been told about a festival 'One Love' which the local radio Station set up. It was just a short bus ride from town, so we headed there today. Being Bob Marleys birthday they also celebrate this, there was a massive reggae music influence for the day. We took a picnic and plotted there for about 3½ hours. There were a few live bands on stage but it was all unfamiliar music, but it was a nice relaxed atmosphere and they sky was clear blue for some sunbathing! We decided to walk back, only to realise that we couldn't walk through the tunnel with the cars, so we had to walk over the top of the mountain - it was a nice walk nonetheless!
Day 153 Sunday 7th February 2010
Johno says
We planned to explore a bit more of Wellington today with a trip to the famous Te Papa Museum first on the agenda! The boring Johno in me actually thought this place was quite interesting with various floors exhibiting the history of New Zealand and the rest of the world - there was a 'see the world through the eyes of a sheep' exhibit which was funny especially when you pressed the lost lamb button! We spent all morning in this place and probably could have spent longer as there was a total of six floors. Then we walked around the city and the shops for a bit, the streets (post Waitangi day and the world cup 7's) seemed a lot more sensible with no one walking around dressed as superhero's, american footballers, pirates, the cast of the hangover, chefs, fairies etc. By the afternoon we were ready to chill out at a coffee shop and people watch so we did just that before heading back to the hostel for dinner. We met a nice retired couple, Geoff and Margaret, who couldn't believe our cooking skills (yes, cooking skills) as we had cooked up a steak dinner with all the trimmings, so we participated in our a couple of hours conversation with them about the world and his wife before heading to bed!