Wellington

December 12, 2011

Wellington

Thursday, November 10^th, 2011

Did a load of laundry at the campervan park – done by 9:30 AM, dumped wastewater and took on water (the campervan holds 65 liters of water and can hold 55 liters of wastewater) before walking the beach at Queen Elizabeth Park across the road from the campervan park for an hour in sporadic rain. Wonderful walk, in spite of the rain.

Then it was off to Wellington to the Botanic Gardens, which, of course, are free. We practically drove right to the gardens, even though Wellington is a moderate sized city (164,000 people in the city, metro area population of 424,000, the capital of NZ, “windy Welly”). However, parking was scarce, with only a small parking lot, which was full, and confusing on street parking with a discount coupon obtained at a grocery store for $7. The first two hours of parking are free in most areas, but many of the spaces also said “residents”. I had a bit of a minny meltdown attempting to navigate the steep narrow streets (San Francisco on steroids) and at one point said let’s just get out of here as I circled the same area for the third time, Donna remained calm during my driving breakdown, and we finally pulled over to a curb to eat lunch. After lunch we went back to the Botanic Gardens parking lot at around 1:30 PM and there were several vacant parking spaces this time. By then it was raining again, so we put on our rain pants (remember we don’t let a little thing like rain set us back - driving in the city on the wrong side of the road with a stickshift campervan – well that just about set me back) and toured the gardens in the off and on rain. They were beautiful – well worth my meltdown. Wellington is a gorgeous waterfront city with an impressive skyline and crashing waves right up against the edge of the city. The Botanic Gardens are next to the cable car museum and cable car shop (Another San Francisco comparison). It also shares the neighborhood with Victoria University. The gardens are very large and very hilly, with lots of unique side gardens…. Australian Garden, Fern Garden, Herb Garden, Fragrant Garden, etc.

We left the gardens at 3:30 and arrived at the Wellington Top Ten Holiday Park in Lower Hutt (a Wellington suburb and home to Global Volunteer Network, a NZ based worldwide volunteer organization, that Colin almost volunteered with a few years back in Kenya – endorsed by no less than Bill Gates) (I knew you just had to know that tidbit). Checking into this holiday park felt like checking into a nice hotel, and the cost was commensurate at $45/night, but we needed to be closer to the city so that we could catch our early morning ferry. Over to the local Countdown grocery store to stock up, a burrito dinner in the campervan, and clean up. The holiday park is a hopping place with a school group in a huge tour bus from Napier right by us, but they quite down nicely by 9:30.