Day 51 - Sat 20th Dec - Taupo to Wellington

Another early start (8am departure) for a long drive from Taupo to Wellington. One of the main roads was closed due to an accident so we had to go an ever longer route and added about an hour onto the journey. We arrived about 5pm and after checking in I headed out for a brief walk around the city.

On the way out of the hostel I bumped in Martin in reception! (Martin was one of the guys on the tour in South America that I hadnt seen since Buenos Aires). He was staying at the same hostel but I didn't see him again so I don't know how long he was staying there.

I met a girl from Singapore in the hostel called Tarn (well actually she was Indian but living in Singapore), and headed out for a meal with her in the evening. Had a fairly early night though as was quite tired from the previous night still.

Day 52 - Sun 21st Dec - Wellington

I was flicking through one of the local newspapers in the dining room at breakfast time, and noticed an advert for a KT Tunstall gig in Wellington. Then I realised it was that night. I thought it was probably unlikely that there were any tickets left but decided to head down to the venue in the morning to see.

I had arranged to meet Tarn again in the morning to go to Te Papa museum (meant to be the best museum in NZ). So we stopped at the venue on the way. It was a small bar and not quite the kind of venue I was expecting her to play at, and there was just a chalk board outside saying that it was $25 for tickets (about a tenner) and it was door sales only. So thought we would try and get there quite early in the evening to try and get tickets.

The weather was dreadful, very cloudy very windy and drizzly, so it was a good day to be inside in the museum. The museum was great, we spent about 4 hours in there, its very interactive and would be great for kids. It has a lot of natural history type areas (animals, geology etc) and some general NZ history parts too - including the Scots in New Zealand' - which was a small section on the huge number of Scottish immigrants.

When we left the museum we had a late lunch / early dinner (in the obligatory Irish pub) before heading to the venue for the gig, praying we would be there early enough to get tickets. We got there about an hour and half before it said the doors opened and there was a small queue but we were quite near the front. We called also hear her doing a sound check so we knew she was really going to be there!

After a couple of hours they let us all in, but the capacity was only about 150-200 people. Eventually a support act came on first, a kiki girl, who was ok and had a good voice but not really the kind of music I would choose to listen to. And about half an hour after she finished KT finally came on.

There was just her and her drummer. It turned out that her drummer is actually her husband, and they had just got married and were on honeymoon in NZ touring around in a campervan! The guy that owned the car was her old tour manager who they were visiting along the way and decided to do him a favour by doing a little gig for him. They had to borrow all the instruments from the local music shop!

The gig was fantastic, she was incredible and very funny too, good stage character. She really got everyone going and the atmosphere was great. On the way out they were selling CDs so I decided to buy one - then realised afterwards it was the support acts!! doh.

Day 53 - Mon 22nd Dec - Wellington

At last sunshine! As it was a nice day I decided to take the cable car up the top of the hill for some great views of the city (much better than the view from Te Papa the day before). I then walked a track that went through the botanical gardens and down the hill back into the city.

Spent a few hours in the internet cafe after that (its amazing how much time these things take). Then cooked myself a meal in the hostel and had an early night, ready for heading accross to the South Island in the morning.