After a wobbly 3 hour ferry ride to the North island we were both very relieved to see Wellington lit up in the night sky, (the night ferrys were cheaper!!) We managed to find a fantastic spot looking right over Wellington harbour on the water front to sleep. The next day we headed in to explore what NZ's capital had to offer. We headed to the Te Papa museum, now this was initially because it was free to get into but it turned out to be really cool. We got to see a collosal squid, sperm whale and pretend we were in a earthquake! Excellent FREE day out. The next morning we met up with a friend we met in Fiji, Jesssie! It was awesome to see her and catch up and she reccomended that we checked out the botanic gardens above the city...and that we did. We sat and had a picnic in the rose garden while what seemed like the whole of NZ jogged past. We then drove right up to the highest point above the city where we managed to nearly run some students over as we drove back down....as it turned out they were Jessies students Ooops!

From Windy Welly we headed up to Tongariro National park with hopes of doing the alpine crossing...this didnt happen but we swore to complete it on our nest trip to NZ! After a few days in the national park spent with a guy who turned out to be a friend of Shellys house mate Lousie we all set off up north to Taupo.