We took the Interislander ferry from Picton in the south island to Wellington in the north. It was a bit of an investment but one that had to be done, the two of us paid $55 each for the passing with the 5.0 meters long campervan costing another $153. Oh well…

We got to the port at about 9.15 a.m., half an hour earlier than the last check in time for the 10.45 ferry. We were directed to a line of other campervans to wait for an hour and a half since the loading didn't really commence until it was already go-time. We used the time working on our pillows, we had bought two cheap ones from Ikea in Australia because our station wagon there didn't come with any. We had brought them to New Zealand but hadn't used them because the campervan here came with three of its own. Not wanting to toss two perfectly good pillows upon leaving New Zealand we had cut one of them in two to make a couple of travel size headrests. I had completed sewing mine and busied myself with testing it while Sini finished up with her needlework.

It was raining again, which was pretty unlucky since the scenery is supposed to be very nice in the Cook Strait. We pretty much missed all of it due to the grayness. The crossing was uneventful and in every aspect just as one might expect, this coming from a person who has travelled on a large ferry before. We drove in, parked the car, took some stairs to the area with the chairs, sat down, waited for the time to go by, got back to the car and drove off. They had a small store in the ferry and also a bar and a food court, but we didn't use any of their services. They had wifi there but not for free, it cost an incredible $4 per 40 megabytes. On the positive side they had such a large number of sofas there that not all were in use while some had just one person on them. We had all the space we needed, but sadly we hadn't brought our travel pillows with us to get some sleep. At the harbor they had a sign saying that the weather conditions were only moderate, but the ferry made it through without even swaying noticeably.

We arrived on schedule at about 2 p.m. and took to the busy streets of Wellington. A word of caution here to anyone doing this, they have a lot of one way streets there. Luckily the free map we had showed these with little arrows on the streets so we made it through alright. We had looked up a place called Rowena's Lodge from an AA booklet describing accommodations all around New Zealand. Apparently this was the only place providing campervan sites inside the city. We found the place alright, but immediately discovered why they limited campervans to small ones with just two berths. We were faced with a very steep hill rising to the carpark in the back of the block. Our Mighty Igel made it up without too much difficulty, but a proper motorhome probably wouldn't have been able to pull it off. The name for the van is a new invention by the way, it derives from the fact that we dubbed our Ford Falcon in Australia "The White Falcon" and wanted to honor this one with something similar. Mighty Eagle sounds good, but doesn't stand closer inspection since there's nothing aerodynamic or ferocious about it. It's slow going uphill and, according to the guy at the rental office, prone to tipping over in high wind (unless you're covered with insurance, of course…). So in the end the eagle-part corrupted into the Swedish word for hedgehog. We love it none the less.

Back to the point, Rowena's did offer unpowered sites for campervans for $15 per person sleeping in it. They were a little suspicious whether our car counted as "small" on the account of it being so high (technically it also has three beds, but the hammock type thing doesn't count, really), but since it had already made the climb it didn't really matter. The guy at the reception was a little odd in other respects also, but that's only to be expected from a place like this. The lodge was in all respects very similar to the place we slept in in Brisbane with a curious keep-to-yourself atmosphere and a little raggedy look to the place. They had a pretty good kitchen with multiple gas stoves, many of which worked, and all the essential pots, plates and cutlery. Also the toilet facilities were clean and there was hot water in the shower, though Sini would have liked it to be a little hotter still. On the outside the building looked rather curious with strange stairs and walkways going around it on every level. The area was littered with similar houses, which all were old, wooden and colorfully painted where the paint hadn't yet peeled off. Lastly, the spot we got on the parking lot was so steep that when we placed a bottle of wine on our table it wouldn't stay still, but slid in a very determent manner to the direction of the street. And this was probably the least steep spot on the lot…

We had only looked at one sight to see in Wellington, the Te Papa Museum, which luckily was open until 9 p.m. on Thursdays. This being a Thursday we took our time heading there. It wasn't much of a walk from the accommodation, which was nice, but when we got there we realized that they were planning to close already at six due to heavy rain, to allow the workers to return home safely. It was 4.15 then, which really bummed me down because I had high expectations for the place. First of all it was free (though parking there would have cost $4 per hour), second of all they had free wifi. And yes, the exhibitions were supposed to be great. They were. We headed first to the Awesome Forces exhibition with a shaking house to demonstrate the power of an earthquake. We don't have those at home in Finland so it was pretty interesting, if a little unnerving considering that here the earth might move underneath us for real at any given time. Next we went to see the giant preserved squid they have flaking away little by little underneath the skeleton of a huge whale hanging from the ceiling. Then we took our time going through the main exhibition, Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War, describing the history and the reality of the New Zealander ANZAC forces in WW1. They had managed to make the place both compelling and a little frightening, to say the least. In addition to gear and personal items of the men and women on the front they had detailed replicas of things like the latrines they would use and the food they would eat. Not knowing all that much about the history and the legacy of the troops, much revered here, didn't really matter. If nothing else, one could surely appreciate the amazing statues they had created, huge in size and incredible in their detail. Apart from being hugely oversized the soldiers were lifelike in every other aspect, their expressions were telling, they had real hair on their heads and limbs and one even had sweat!

The main exhibition was hard to beat and not surprisingly the rest of the museum didn't quite manage that. At least the parts that we saw, because we were running out of time. We ran through the Maori rooms and ended the excursion in Slice of Heaven: 20th Century Aotearoa, which was a confusing array of everything the 20th century meant for New Zealander households. Confusing pretty much sums up the entire experience we had in the museum, they just have so much stuff in there and so much to tell about all of it. My attention span is much too limited for taking in the amounts of information they had in the signs next to everything. Had we had the time the experience could have been different, I at least could have stayed at least a couple more hours in order to take it all in without rush. Even after the speedy tour we did I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Wellington. Saying that it's totally worth it doesn't really work because it was free, but you get the point.

At six o'clock we left the museum and headed back to the accommodation. It was dark and rainy so we decided to skip the rest of the sights Wellington had to offer, whatever they might be. We had another dinner based on textured soy protein and pasta, which pretty much sums up our diet here. To anyone not familiar with textured soy protein I say: give it a try, it's not as bad as it sounds. As it comes from the bag it looks and tastes like crumbs of Finnish näkkileipä, a hard brown bread. But once added to equal amount of boiled water it transforms into what looks like cooked minced meat and tastes like… textured soy protein. A bag that makes three meals for us costs less than $6 and if you happen to have acquired a load of spices, sauces and garlic, it's completely possible to make it taste like mince. More or less. Really, food in New Zealand is expensive so you have to be creative and make the best of what you can afford. The other day we found some hamburger steaks made of sheep on discount, we marinated them in our cheap 5.8% alc/vol wine and spices to give them something extra. We might be living like hobos, spending our evenings with ski caps on and drinking boxed wine out of self-made plastic glasses, but we do it in style!