August 7th (Friday) - Day 159 - Taupo to Wellington
The day started off like any other day on the bus. A few photo stops etc. He then mentioned that someone had asked him to stop at an extreme gravity centre. He mentioned how he shouldn't and that we should not tell anyone else. It seemed like a good idea as they had a bungy and canyon swing and a flying zip wire thing. This all seemed great until we arrived. Only 2 people seemed interested as it was so expensive to do anything. They of course wanted to do the zip wire thing which was a good 1km walk away (uphill). So the rest of us sat and watched a few Japanese from another bus throw themselves off the bridge. After about an hour there was no sign of the driver or the 2 people. It turns out the 3 of them had been out late the night before drinking and he somehow agreed to do this with them. They finally came back after 90 minutes and everyone started to move toward the bus. But then the driver said the girls wanted to do something else and as such the other 30 of us had to wait longer. As we were so long we missed out on the things we were meant to have done that day. We arrived into Wellington about 2 and a half hours later than planned. However Wellington is a great little city. Not a massive amount for tourists but a very 'liveable' city. Sarah and I had a walk around town. It was bustling with the Friday feeling, you could really sense it. We went for a few happy hour promotions and then ended up in a pizzeria that did the largest pizza ever! Not knowing this we ordered 2!

August 8th (Saturday) - Day 160 - Wellington
We have found the best way to see a city is from the top of mountains. Hence the first thing we did was climb mount Victoria. The bus was meant to bring us up here the day before but because it was running late we never made it. They filmed a lot of the Lord of the Rings on this hill as it is covered in dense woods. The hill itself was not that tall but was extremely steep in places. As expected the views from the top were amazing. The harbour stretched out for miles on one side and all the buildings were on the other. There seemed to be loads of rugby players at the top on some kind of tour using one of our magic buses. We walked to a second look out point and just spent ages looking out. The trip back down the hill was a lot quicker shockingly. We headed over to the national museum called Te Papa. It's not very often I can drag Sarah into a museum but even she enjoyed it. It was a very interactive museum which makes learning a lot more fun. They covered everything New Zealand from earth quakes to immigration. One thing that really stood out to be was the giant squid they caught off Antarctica. This thing was huge and now on display. It must have been about 4 metres in length. On the way out we discovered the Mac's Brewery bar which did all kinds of new age beer.

August 9th (Sunday) - Day 161 - Wellington
As we'd been to the parliament building in Australia we had to do the same in New Zealand. We got scanned on the way in and then had to leave all our stuff in storage anyway. The tour seemed to focus more on the building than on the members of parliament but it was still cool. New Zealand does not have a very long history so they are proud of a building when it does have some history. This was no exception. They showed us a quick video about the history of the building including fire and earth quake damage. This lead nicely into the first real thing they had to show us. This was a number of earth quake proof columns. They had to insert 400 new columns of the building and then cut the old ones away. It means the building can withstand some really strong earth quakes. They then showed us numerous rooms including the library, all of which has recently been refurbished to look exactly like it did when the building was erected. We then got to see the main parliament area where members of the house sit. Next were a number of big halls which seemed to be used more for staff weddings than anything else and finally we saw the famous "beehive" where the offices of the sitting government are located. The whole tour lasted over an hour and was far better than the Australian one. That afternoon we headed up the famous cable cars to the observatory and gardens. Our guide book that was printed over a year ago said the observatory would be finished by the time we were reading this. It still was not finished (I think due to funding issues). So we had a walk around the gardens at the top before heading back down. We had a quick look around some shops before heading over to Mac's for a few more!

August 10th (Monday) - Day 162 - Wellington
We had wanted to do a lord of the rings location tour since we arrived and realised this would be our last chance. We knew it would be cheesy but it had to be done. Our guide knew everything possible about these films and showed us by talking solidly for 5 hours. It was a lot of talking but was also good to find out some of the things they did while making the film. For example they used far more CGI than you think, mostly to cover up anything that is 21st century such as cars. We had a quick stop at the mount Victoria lookout before driving down into the woods. Loads of shots had been filmed here including the famous one where they first see the bad guys chasing them. Somehow I managed to guess what the clip was. All through the trip we got to mimic the actors and this was the first one we got to mimic. Our next stop was not that exciting. It was a working quarry they had used to film some of the large hill cities. They had built small parts of the city and the rest was CGI. We couldn't go in as they were working. Our next stop was quite a way out of Wellington but the best one of the tour. This was Rivendell where the elf's live. For some unknown reason we did a walk around the woods first and then had morning tea. We then got to walk up to where they had the set. Again most of it was CGI but you could see how they'd done a lot of it. We then got to pose with a sword and fake elf ears. Next was a public park that they had shot a few bits in including a tree. Not any old tree. This one tree had been pulled over about 100 times and put back up and filmed from another direction. That way they only had to pull down one tree not 100's. Our final stop was by the river they used in the first film. We didn't do anything that afternoon as Sarah was not feeling to great. We did however make it out that evening to Mac's.