The ferry ride to Wellington went really smoothly. I took the opportunity to catch up on burning photo discs and sleep while Bev wrote in her journal. We arrived three hours later, and we drove off the ferry and headed towards downtown.

Our first task was to go to the Department of Conservation to book two slots to gain access to the nature reserve on Kapiti Island, as they only allow access to 50 people per day. Since we only have a two-day window to try to hike on the island, we needed to get our permits ASAP. Normally, we would have booked this further in advance, but since it is low season here, we have pretty much had our pick of activities without any problems.

We landed at the Government Building, which is one of the largest, all wood buildings in the world, but it turns out that the DOC had moved. We called to reserve our slots, and then we headed to a great local pub called "The Backbencher" for lunch. Close to Parliament, the Backbencher is the lunch restaurant of choice for many a parliamentarian and his/her staff. The restaurant is filled with caricatures, political cartoons, and even muppet-sized puppets of famous political figures.

After lunch, we drove to the DOC and finalized our plans for Kapiti. Now, the last time we showered was after the first day of the Abel Tasman, so at this point, we had no clean clothes and hadn't showered for almost three days. The funk was bad in ye ole camper van. So, we decided to get a hostel, since there didn't seem to be anywhere to put the camper van and get access to the facilities we needed within a 10km radius of downtown Wellington. We checked into the hostel, and let me tell you, a shower never felt so sweet. We did a huge load of laundry, and we felt much better.

The next day we visited the Te Papa museum, which is a fantastic Smithsonian-esque museum dedicated to all things New Zealand. We spent many hours there and learned so much. It was groovy.

I suppose now is as good a time as any to go over some New Zealand basics. New Zealand consists of two islands pretty far down in the South Pacific, as in, next stop is Antarctica. The two islands, the north and the south island, are located at the tail end of the so called Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped area around the Pacific basin where more than 80% of the world's volcanoes and earthquakes occur. The Australian tectonic plate meets the Pacific plate at New Zealand, so it is quite geothermally active, with active volcanoes and fairly frequent earthquakes, few of which hit populated areas. The wonderful side effect of this activity is the stunning landscape on the two differing islands.

The north island is quite geothermally active, with bubbling mud pools, hot sulfur pools and caves, richly colored mineral lakes, active and inactive volcanoes, craters, enormous blue lakes, and plenty of beautiful coastlines. Further, it is the focal point for cultural awareness of the indigenous people, the Maori. It is also the home to the capital of New Zealand - Wellington - and the largest city, Auckland.

The South Island is magnificent, with the Southern Alps careening just off the coast towards the sky, with glaciers on top and the Tasman Sea as the backdrop. The south island is less populated, but it boasts amazing glaciers, many of the tallest mountains in New Zealand, great walks, adventure sports, beautiful lakes, fabulous coastline, beach towns, and plenty of good cheer. We'll cover more about the Maori and the wildlife here when we write up our time in Rotorua and Kapiti Island. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming:

The next day we had to get up early to get the boat over to Kapiti Island, so we left Wellington shortly after our visit to the Te Papa museum and drove out to Paraparaumu, which is where we planned to pick up the boat in the morning.