Clare writes:

DOn't believe this picture - we've been to Wellington twice now and it rained both times! grrrr. I'm starting to get hostel fatigue too - most of the places we've stayed have been great but there is a tendency to only have 6 cooker rings for 100 people and I'm not great at sharing a kitchen with even one other person!!

Anyway - last night's gig in Wellington seemed to go really well. Lovely people - very civilised after my last gig - the crazy night in Auckland where I was on straight after the Irish punk band on St Paddy's night in an open bar with the rowdiest pub crowd! One more to go on this 'world tour' - unless I find pockets of Welsh-speakers in Argentina.

Sheila writes:

Wellington is a cold, windy and wet place - but at least I found the city centre yesterday - with CBD, shops and the library! Really nice pubs too - the pub we were in for Clare's gig (the Thistle Inn) was brilliant - a newly renovated building with stripped pine floors and doors, beautiful victorian copper cisterns in the bathroom and a big log fire in the bar! wonderful after the rain and cold outside.

Last time in Wellington we loved Te Papa - the big museum on the waterfront - so yesterday I went back - just to revisit the brilliant satellite map of New Zealand - a whole room devoted to it on lit-up tiles on the floor. I wanted to re-run the route we'd taken around south Island and see all our favourite places - especially the West Coast glaciers and their proximity to Mount Cook and the Lake Tekana area we loved in the east of the Southern Alps.

We're off next to napier - so the next blog should be all about architecture and wine!