Not-so-Windy Welly

Most of this week I spent visiting my friend Isabella and her family in the beautiful city of Wellington, at the very bottom of the North Island. So far Wellington was one of my favorite cities in NZ, it's a great mixture of Seattle and San Francisco in my mind, with the small downtown in a harbor and modi of the houses built right up on the hills surrounding the harbor. It's really very beautiful, although I was told that my opinion was skewed because I got two incredibly beautiful days. Usually it is super windy, which is how it got the nickname "windy Welly" The entire region had an enormous storm last week and much of the city lost power and many of the rail services are still down, but the calm after the storm that I got to experience was sunny and beautiful!

Isabella's family graciously took me in for three nights and let me stay in their guest room in their lovely house a twenty minute train ride outside of town. It was really lovely and a much needed rest after two weeks of hostels. Both days in Wellington I caught a ride into town with Isabella and her father going to work, which gave me the whole morning and afternoon to explore. On the first morning I took the cable car up to the top of the city for some amazing sunrise views of the city below, then followed a path which winds through the botanical gardens back down. While not much was in bloom, it was still lovely to see all the plants and go on a few bush walks (in NZ anything that is like the wild/untamed nature is called the bush). Afterwards I wandered the waterfront for a bit, got some tea and read my book in the sunshine on the water, it was really lovely.

I met Isabella for lunch at a French cafe (reliving our time at Sciences-Po), then I headed over to tour parliament. Wellington is the capital of NZ, and it's seat of government. I was just planning to tour the building, but I arrived there right when the parliament was sitting, so I headed to the gallery and watched the members question the prime minister and his cabinet about the topics of the day. It really got quite heated at times, I thought one member was going to be thrown out of the chamber! They were arguing like children, calling the other party names and making rude comments, it was like a soap opera. I haven't ever seen our government in action but I guess I now know why nothing actually gets done in congress.

My second day in Wellington was just as nice. I spent most of the day in the Te Papa museum, the biggest (and supposedly best) in NZ. Entry is free, too, which was an excellent perk. There is so much content in the 6 floors that it took me four and a half hours to get through it all. Loads about NZ history and culture, and a fair amount of natural history things as well. I would highly recommend a visit as it definitely was a great way to learn about the county. The rest of the day I spent wandering around the waterfront, soaking up the sun and the beautiful views of the harbor. I was back at the house by 4:30 as it gets dark by five, and enjoyed another really fresh and delicious dinner by Isabella's sweet mum.

The next day I was up early to catch a ride into town to get the Interislander ferry over to the South Island. The ferry was about two hours late, and with no heating in the terminal it was a long morning. I had also heard terrible stories about how bumpy the crossing is and that most people get seasick, so I took a preemptive motion sickness pill. That turned out to be a poor call, because although I didn't get sick, it made me super drowsy and I fell asleep for most of the ride. I woke up for the very end, though, which was a beautiful ride through the archipelago of the Marlborough Sounds. Pictures below! I landed for the night in Picton, which is a small and quiet but picturesque town. I did some grocery shopping, made dinner then called it an early night. I've been pretty tired lately but I think it has a lot to do with how early the sun goes down. I'm sitting in a library right now at 5 pm and it's already dark!

Which brings me to today! I was getting kind of tired of being a tourist over the past week, and had some extra time in my schedule so I decided to do a week of WWOOFING, which is an international network of organic farms where you can go work on a farm for room and board. I found a nice family with a large sheep and beef farm right outside of Blenheim in the Marlborough region. They also grow a lot of grapes for wine (although they don't do any bottling or wine production). The family is sweet with two (high energy) toddlers and I'll be staying with them until Thursday to do some gardening and farm work. It should be a really cool experience I hope! I only have internet at the library in town so I probably won't be online again until Nelson on Thursday, but we shall see!