This morning we wee up fairy sensibly and managed to leave around 9:30 for the short walk to Lower Hutt, Waterloo station and caught the train to Wellington. It was a windy but hot day. The train journey was nice along the front of the harbour. The train was a little old and the conductor was miserable but very helpful. Also on the train were a group of blokes on the way to the Rugby 7s who were very friendly. We arrived in Wellington to be greeted by a large number of people dressed in Cadburys purple and afro wigs, they were offering wigs and chocolate to passers by. We accepted latter rather than the former. We then walked along the quay seeing people in all sorts of outfits from basic T-shirts with slogan on eg Sotally Tober to yes well ! We saw Hugh Heffner and a couple of Bunny Girls, Dominos, Fred Flintstone, Punks, neon shorts and wigs, fairytale characters, smurfs, life guards (slip, slap slop or die!). The town was buzzing and you could tell it was going to be alcohol fuelled when the cafes were offering free pints with breakfast.
We stopped at a brilliant play park on the quay and the girls played and played while we had pancakes and coffee. David said he knew we were in NZ when the pancake man said he did not have change for the note so we should pop by later when we had a smaller note. As David left the stall he heard the chap turn to his assistant and comment they were now in the red.
We then went to Te Papa and spent some time in the children's areas, on the interactive map and in the earthquake and volcano section. The museum was on the whole well done and the girls enjoyed it.
Elizabeth through a tantrum of a major scale and me doing my ignore the tantrum approach got me asked if she was mine. Anyway she soon was sorted and enjoyed exploring the planet section. NZ is active geology !
We then walked up through Torey St to Dixon St and onto Lambton Quay. We had lunch at Wholly Bagel and Elizabeth slept through it completely. While eating lunch and watching the sights, or rather the rugby supporters go by Alex asked ' Mummy who are all these bonkers ?'
After lunch we caught the cable car up to the botanic gardens, what an amazing view ! All of the city was laid out before us. We explored a small but very good museum about the cable car before talking a walk through the gardens back to the station. The route was signed by pink flowers painted on the ground and Alex spent a fair amount of time finding them and sitting on them. We stopped at another good playpark and the girls loved it - thus continued our tour of the playparks of NZ. The route then took us through a graveyard and over the motorway, when the motorway was built they had to move and rebury 3700 bodies.
When we reached the station it was heaving with 7s fans, all good natured.
Arrived back to Andrew's at around 5pm and had BBQ for dinner.
Andrew seems really settled in NZ and appears to love it ! In fact I think he is turning native as he was supporting NZ against England for the 7s. England won