The next part of our adventure was to catch the ferry from Picton to Wellington cruising through the Queen Charlotte Sound. The ferry was like a typical ferry, like the ones you get from Dover to Calais complete with a food court etc only with better scenery.

Windy Wellington is the worlds most southernmost capital, and it certainly is windy. When we arrived outside our hostel we were welcomed with gale force winds, Helen had to use her feet to push the car door open.

Our first impressions (or rather Helen's as Nicks been twice before) is that Wellington is a very pretty city, surrounded by a harbour and green hills created by major fault lines. It's also tiny, considering its the capital of NZ and it only has a population of 379,000 (est).

Nick spent the first morning running the annual Wellington 10k run, while Helen supported him from the sidelines and browsed the local markets. We got some lunch and then browsed the Te Papa museum, which was amazing considering it was a freebie. We learnt all about the history of NZ including the Treaty of Waitangi and the Maori's. There was also an exhibition with a colossal squid which was amazing as we have never seen one before as they are mostly deep sea. It was enormous and we wouldn't like to be caught by one! There was also an earthquake stimulator, where we stood inside a fake house and felt aftershocks of a 6.2 quake (as we didn't feel anything in Christchurch). Now, we know how it feels and clearly wouldn't like to experience the real thing! As it was Maori New Year, Matariki we also saw loads of Maori groups singing and performing as there was a concert being held in the foyer of the museum.

The evening was spent viewing Wellington from tiny Mount Victoria (196m), we watched the Cook Strait ferries cross, airplanes taking off and landing at Wellington Airport. On the way back to our hostel we drove along Oriental Parade taking in the sights of houses in the $1m region (still no double glazing, what's wrong with these people?).

The following day we met up with a friend for lunch, browsed Cuba Street (a little like Camden), attempted to go to the cinema but ended up watching Lords of the Rings ready for our tour the following day as we didn't want to appear clueless on the tour.

Our last full day in Wellington was spent on the LOTR tour, where we posed for some photos with props (the most hilarious has to be Nick posing as Legolas complete with a blonde wig and all). We visited some of the locations used for filming such as Helms Deep, Minas Tirith, Gardens of Isengard, Hinged Tree of Isengard, Rivendell, Aragorn washed ashore on the river etc etc. At the end of the tour we visited the WETA caves which was a little let down....then we drove past the Stone Street Studios hoping to see some stars which we didn't. We were shocked by how much of the film is actually computerised....

The following morning we were on the road again to Napier.