Despite the awful weather, we love Wellington!!
Trip Start
Apr 30, 2011
1
32
66
Trip End
Dec 08, 2011
Where I stayed
Wellington, North Island, New Zealand
Thursday, August 11, 2011
We made our way along the parade to the pick up point and waited. We waited and waited and waited. The bus was due in at 0900. We had arrived at 0840 and it was now 1010!
With a little investigating and help from the I-site centre, we managed to find out that the bus had been changed to 0730! Naked Bus have no contact numbers, only email. Not a lot of good to us really. Luckily the I-site centre deal with Naked Bus so they have a direct line. We ended up having to book more tickets for the bus leaving at 1345. Nakedbus wouldn't give us new tickets for free, but were nice enough to give us 25% discount. Better than nothing! The tickets worked out pretty cheap in the end so it wasn't so bad. They told us we could follow it up at a later date with complaints, but we didn't see the point. They'd claimed they'd emailed to tell us of the change in time, so it was their word against ours.
We hung around in Starbucks until it was time to catch our bus. It was then four hours to Wellington.
The city looked really modern as we came in, and we saw the ship that would be taking us over to the South island in a few days time. The driver dropped us off and gave us some helpful info on hostels. The YHA was ridiculously expensive and had few beds available, so little chance of any 'winter discount' there. So we went and checked into a place called Wellywood Backpackers, which was about a 10 minute walk away. We found the hostel easily as its a four or five story building with zebra print all over it! The room was really basic for the price, which was a shock as we'd been used to getting quite good bargains. But being in the capital, we couldn't expect that here! It was a quick dinner in a chinese and then off to bed.
Our first day in Wellington we made for the shops. There are many vintage shops as well as the more mainstream. Lots of bars and an endless amount of restaurants. In fact, there are more restaurants per capita in Wellington, than there are in New York! The weather was really bad though, it was pouring it down with rain. For something to do and some shelter, we headed to the city museum where it was dry and entry was free. A word we like a lot! The museum was huge and very impressive. It's well worth a visit. In the evening we headed out to a Thai restaurant. The dishes we ordered were very hot so the waitress had said they would do milder version for Chris. Well the chef was having none of this. He came to our table and told him this could (or would) not be done. he warned us they would be hot, but we took the dishes as they came..... By the end of the meal we were both sniffling and our mouths were on fire. We swore that the chef was watching us with a sly smile on his face. We left and went to a few bars. Towards the end of the night we found ourselves in a small club playing some pretty bad music. The Dirty Dancing theme tune was playing as we entered. If it wasn't for the nice gesture of the bouncer and Fran dragging us in there... we would have walked right on by!
It was a fun night and it being a Saturday and us being in a big city, we thought we needed a little fun out on the town.
On the Sunday we went back out to the shops. Chris had been looking for an Army Surplus shop for a new bag. The sports bag from Buenos Aires had nearly had it, packed with all the many things we'd been gathering. He picked up a nice British WW1 bag. It smelled a little funny, but if it's lasted this long it would probably go on another 4 months.
The weather still being bad, we spent the evening sorting out our travel to the port for the journey to the South. There is a lot to do in Wellington if you're not on a massively tight budget. The Lord of the Rings tour that is offered in many locations around NZ would have been very cool, but it cost an absolute fortune.
Our last morning we were up early to check out, catch our transfer to the port and check in by 0740. Here we go to the South island!!
