Saturday 7th November. In the morning we were given a tour of Waikanae, or as Leishcen called the town, "God’s waiting room", due to it being a place where people relocated to retire (very similar to Lampeter!) The town was saturated with a thriving cottage industry, of people selling home made crafts and art from their family homes. We called in at a few of these galleries and I had to constantly remind Sheila that our cases were already above the 30 kg weight limit. The town is on the south west coast of North Island, but the constant wind did not seem to deter the white bait fishermen we had a chat with on the beach, and were waiting for their catch to be brought in on the tide.
Wellington, the capital of New Zealand was our next stop. Wellington has a population of 400,000 (10% of the total) and is only second to Auckland in density. It is known also as NZ’s windiest city – explained by the wind being funnelled up through the Cook Strait, into the harbour, and then exaggerated by the multi storey buildings. We parted company with our V6 Ford Falcon hire car which had carried us comfortably down through North Island. I was not able to use the power that was obviously available, because of the strictly enforced 100km speed limit, and the tourist mode that you tend to adopt when travelling through beautiful countryside full of cows and sheep. It was even tooted a few times by impatient drivers and called a ‘nana driver’ by Mandi McCleod on Facebook. Who ever suggested that I was a fast driver back in Wales!
We arrived at the hotel in mid afternoon and after a walk around the harbour which was full of backpackers and sightseers, we gave in to the exhaustion after a pretty hectic week. We did of course remember to set the alarm clock for six next morning, and the big game to be held at the Millennium Stadium!
No comments:
Post a Comment