The ferry over to Wellington from Picton was a trip down memory lane for Tom. He remembered taking 'The Pride of Cherbourg' over to France when he was younger.

The crossing itself was excellent with the sun shining and the wind blowing while we watched the wonderful scenery slowly pass us by. We then powered across the Cook Strait and docked in Wellington harbour.

We had read about a really convenient camper-site right in the centre of the city and we decided this was the place for us. It was five minutes from the boat and about five minutes on foot into the city. We found it pretty easily and as we turned in, we were a little bit surprised. It was a car park.

Fair enough, it had electricity and a shower block, but it literally was a car park with the world driving by. Either way, we needed somewhere to stay and our busy schedule still meant the location was more important to us than anything else. We were right on the beautiful harbour front of Wellington with fantastic views of this stunning little city.

We parked up and headed straight out towards the Te Papa museum. This is the national museum of New Zealand and it was brilliant! It's really interactive so we had a great time playing with volcanic rocks, jumping on pressure sensors and hanging on in an earthquake simulator! There are great sections on national history and the history of New Zealand as well which we enjoyed just as much.

That evening we had booked ourselves onto a little treat. The Zealandia wildlife sanctuary is a reclaimed valley just outside of Wellington that is being recovered to how it was before any settlers arrived 1000 years ago. They have loads of native birds and plants which we imagine are great to wander around during the day. However, we had signed ourselves up to go around it at night.

The reason for this was simple: Kiwi spotting. We were handed red-light torches and headed out with our guide into the dense forest. Within minutes we heard the call of the Kiwi chirping around us, so we were in high spirits.

Within minutes we had seen a couple of Takahe (there are less than 250 in the whole of New Zealand!) so we were getting even more hopeful of a Kiwi sighting. Throughout the evening we managed to see loads of Kaka (parrots), a couple of Tuatara (ancient reptiles), some Pateke (rare ducks) and even a Wellington Green Gecko. However, sadly, we didn't see a Kiwi. We were OK with this though because the sanctuary was such a perfect little place. You felt you really were miles out of the city in the wilderness and we didn't see any Kiwi for the simple reason that they didn't want us to. Despite the minor disappointment we went back tired, but very happy. We would recommend that night tour to anyone.

The next morning we groggily pulled ourselves out of bed and headed out to the Weta Caves. This is the studio behind all the special effects for Lord of the Rings.

We had an eventful journey through the busy Wellington streets which involved us turning into four lanes of one way traffic at one point! There were no signs saying it was one way (we even drove past again to check) and with no traffic coming down as we turned in, we felt it was their fault for not telling us.

Eventually we made it there alive and wandered into the little museum full of props from all of the films they had worked on. It was fascinating to see everything with details on how it is all made. We also watched a 'behind the scenes' film that tells us all about the different departments that work there. It really was amazing how they all work together.

We really enjoyed our time in Wellington and it is definitely somewhere we would like to return. It's so green for a capital city and with it being right on the sea front, it really makes for a very nice place to be indeed.