Wellington is in the south of North Island and is the capital city of New Zealand. The stunning harbour is surrounded by hills and our excursion took us around the bay. Wellington reminded us very much of San Francisco with it's brightly painted wooden houses and hills.

The lovely old worldy beach houses are mixed with modern expensive ones. Some are built into the rock face and have their own funicular railways to take you to the top. At Lambton Quay we boarded the cable car to Kelburn and to the Botanical Gardens. We stopped at the centrepiece, the Lady Norwood Rose Gardens which was extremely colourful.

Our trip continued through the business district and to the Parliament and government buildings with a final stop at the Old St Paul's Cathderal which had beautiful timber interiors and stained glass.

Nicknamed "Windy Wellington", we only experienced a lovely warm summer day but back onboard the weather changed and through the Tasmin sea we head, with it's rainy and cool weather.

It's Sydney, Australia on Tuesday and we change ships, the Queen Mary will be waiting for us to take us to south New Zealand and then north to Japan and China.