We woke up to find our luck with the weather had finally turned against us and as a result we were unable to go whale watching. The day was spent wondering around the non existent town in the rain before heading back to the hostel for a marathon DVD day. By late evening my brain had finally turned to mush, however, the others still managed to squeeze in another film! The following day we woke with the slight hope we might be able to go whale watching, but again, the weather was pretty poor, so instead we made our way to Picton, where we waved goodbye to the south Island and caught the 3 hour ferry ride to Wellington. Having spent so long in small towns, Wellington was a welcome to all senses! The vibrant flashing lights, the music blaring from bars, the slight hint of exhaust fumes (well as close as you get in New Zealand) - yet compared to most cities in the world Wellington would be classed as...Tiny!
We spent 2 full days in Wellington and it rained the entire time! We went to Tu Papa which is New Zealand's national museum and was really interesting. It talked you through the Maori culture and explained their way of how the earth was formed etc, inc a earthquake room! The city itself is pretty cool with lots of arty sculptures dotted around and a Cuban quarter which had cool shops and cafes etc. Wellington was officially the town of free upgrades, as our hostel upgraded us to our own room. We also went to the cinema to see Indiana Jones and were upgraded to the gold lounge for free! The gold lounge was pretty sweet as we each had our own lazy boy style arm chair, with foot rest and had all the free drinks and popcorn we could want!! We left Wellington this morning and made our way to Taupo. En route we drove through a funny little town called Bulls where all the shops had funny names containing the word bull - even the police station was called Cunsta-Bull!! We drove along Lake Taupo which is stunning and HUGE!! Taupo is a really pretty town with amazing views of the lake.