The road to Wellington was fraught with danger and rabid animals. Only joking it was pretty tame and the only animals we saw were from a return to the Ohau seal pups, of which there were even more than last time, although they could have been rabid in all fairness. The ferry journey was equally uneventful, a little bit choppy but nothing compared to rolling around on the sea in a kayak the day previously.

Once we arrived in Wellington I checked into my hostel, a different one from the standard one the Kiwi experience uses - I am sick to death of Base hostels, they are always small and the standard of cleanliness isn't brilliant, as well as being full of 18 year olds drunk every night. I was pretty pleased with the one I'd booked into, and it was cheaper than the standard Base hostels too, but we'll see how comfortable the beds are!

My first impressions of Wellington were very positive, despite wandering around at dusk when I couldn't see much. It was a lot busier than anywhere else I've been in New Zealand so far, but as my bus driver said, the South Island has 1 million inhabitants - the North, 3 million, so there are going to be more populated areas for the rest of my trip, which isn't a bad thing at all. I was actually looking for a supermarket I'd seen on the bus on the way in but didn't manage to find it which was frustrating, I found a smaller one instead so did manage to get some food. The upside to getting a bit lost was that I saw a lot of Wellington - it's a relatively small city despite being the capital and on my wanderings I found Cuba street which has some brilliant looking little boutiques selling all sorts of cool stuff, not that I'll be able to afford anything, the film museum I intend to visit very soon, a night market with the tastiest smelling doughnuts for sale, a cinema, theatre, and possibly the most exciting discovery, my second Mecca after a good library - the Les Mills headquarters. I'm going to look into it more over the next couple of days but I was more excited than is necessarily healthy about seeing the HQ for an exercise company!

I have noticed already about Wellington that the birds are really, really noisy! I don't know what sort of birds they are since it was dark, I imagine sparrows or something, but they were singing so loudly when I was walking down the street it was like having a private symphony in my head. At least they were in tune. I walked past numerous little bars that looked brilliant, but not having the guts to go in somewhere by myself, and trying to save money, stopped me going in but I can imagine Wellington as a brilliant place to live and work, it's got a definite small town feel. The man at the information kiosk was trying to encourage me to look at emigrating to New Zealand - apparently they need more people so if anyone is thinking of emigrating, look here, don't bother with Australia!!

It was a drizzly day when I decided to go up the cable car to the botanic gardens. The cable car itself has been running since the 1800s and is a symbol of the city, they're very proud of it! It's only a 5 minute ride up to the botanic gardens but I figured I may as well utilize this classic Wellingtonian landmark. New Zealand is rapidly moving into spring, or so it seems, despite the damp weather that day it was warm and snowdrops were out in the gardens, camellias were coming out in bloom and numerous trees and flowers were covered in little green buds, all very secret garden. As I walked through to get back to the city I couldn't help but feel how much Grandma Fuller would have loved it, leave me alone for a few days and I get very contemplative.

Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand although not the largest, Auckland has that honour, and is the home of New Zealand parliament. Since I've already been around Australia's parliament buildings I decided to take advantage of a free tour around New Zealand's as well and see where all the big decisions are made. The Parliament building itself is called 'the beehive' due to its tiered design being vaguely reminiscent of, funnily enough, a beehive, but only if you squint and tilt your head to one side. I found the tour very interesting, surprising since I don't hold any affection for politics, but since New Zealand is only so recently inhabited by Europeans who brought their kind of Government, as opposed to the Maori tribes way of life, they seem to have tried to learn from different, existing forms of leadership. As far as I could tell they made use of British and German parliament forms, taking the best of each I suppose. The decoration in Parliament uses mainly indigenous materials and has a definite feel for Maori culture and design, very different to the Australian building which didn't really have much character at all. The woman taking the tour was a big fan of the phrase 'good to go' and seemed to have difficulty saying the word 'representative' which caused muffled giggles from me every time she used it.

I had a full day of sightseeing ahead, trying to see as much of Wellington as I could in the short time I had there so my next stop was Old St Paul's church, which wasn't like any other churches I've visited, mainly because it is built solely of wood. This gave it a really warm and cosy feel inside, rather than the cold stone of English churches and cathedrals. I don't think it was meant to be a permanent addition to the city when it was built, early on in Wellington's history, to service the whalers, sealers and immigrants that populated the city. Now it's more of a tourist attraction than a regular church but it still does some services, although I can't help but feel the acoustics wouldn't be great.

My final stop for the day was the Museum of City and Sea, which was OK but the highlight, and the main reason I went, was because there were some free gigs on. I managed to catch a 45 minute set by 2 members of the Hot Club Sandwich trio, a band who do parody and irreverent songs which I found truly hilarious. I only wish they had done a longer set! Now to find some songs and download…

Te Papa museum was the final place on my list of must see attractions in the city, so, packed lunch in hand, I walked down on my last day in New Zealand's capital. On the way I was accosted by a man working for a charity, whose first question was 'Are you from Germany?' as I replied no he then enquired as to whether I was Dutch. As that was an obvious no he was extremely surprised when I said I was English. Apparently I tie my scarf on the European way, who knew. Maybe that explains the numerous misconceptions in Australia too! Anyway back to Te Papa, it's won lots of awards for its interactive nature and I could see why, I was there from about 10am until 6pm and time really flew! It helped that it had free internet as well so I had a good hour or so using that. The highlight, and also lowlight as it freaked me out, of the museum was the colossal squid specimen preserved intact. Its eyes are the size of footballs and it was just generally disgusting but also annoyingly interesting. I think I got my fear of the ocean back anyway, I won't be going deep sea diving anytime soon.

Becca