Today is our next to last day in New Nealand for this holiday. At 7:30 we were knocking on John and Georgie’s door to collect them and take them out to the airport for their flight to Auckland, and more adventures on their own for a few days.
It was an easy short drive to the airport and it was a fairwell with mixed emotions, sad to see them go but happy for all the great times we had shared with them over the last 12 days. We are not sure when we will see each other again for a holiday, but I am sure we will team up again. 🙂
The drive back into town was a bit slower for us, we got peak hour in Wellington, but the Kiwi drivers are all pretty layback and the traffic flowed, even if it be very slowly.
We spent a few hours just relaxing and getting things together before we checked out and started a bit more exploring in Wellington.
We headed off to Old St Paul’s church, just down the hill from Parliament House. It is NZ’s finest example of a Gothic Revival wooden church. It is about 150 years old and no longer operates as a church (but it can still be hired out for weddings, etc). It’s a great old building and should be on your to do list when in Wellington.
Next stop was a seafood shop we noticed on Cuba Street, that had crayfish (lobster) for sale at a very good price. So we picked one up to have for tea tonight with a bottle wine we bought in Nelson and some crusty bread we picked up this morning.
From there we took a drive out to Houghton Bay, to see if our B & B for tonight was ready (a bit cheeky, we aren’t meant to have it until 2pm, but we thought a drive by to see if it was ready early was worth it. The door was open and it was being cleaned, so we drove on to the Maranui Cafe in the Lyall Bay Surf Club for lunch. Deb had found a write up of the Cafe in an Australian paper and it sounded interesting, and it was fantastic. The cafe is in the upper level of a small surfclub building right on the beach and is filled with an excentric/eclectic collection of beachy things, from Mounted Marlins to surf boat oars and beyond. The place was very busy and the atmosphere was buzzing. We sat and ate and watched Kite Surfers criss cross infront of the clubhouse. Very relaxing.
We dropped our bags back at our B&B, and headed back out to The Weta Cave. This place is amazing, it was established by Peter Jackson and others to create the characters and props for movies such as Avatar, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Tintin. It had life size models from many movies, including Golem and Gandalf, Hobbit feet and props from District 9 and King Kong. They also run a behind the scenes tour of their workshops, but by this time we were ready just to kick back for the afternoon.
On the way back we saw an Easter Island Statue, by the beach, a gift from the Chilean government, so we stopped and took photos – Easter Island is on our to do list!! Wonder if that means we don’t need to go? Probably not!!
After that we returned to our B & B, “The Keep” on the Esplanade Houghton Bay. It is an amazing little building. It looks like the keep of an old medievil castle, battlements and all. It has 3 main levels, all about 3.5m x 3.5m. The first is a lounge/dining kitchen space, next is the bedroom. spa bath and ensuite, and the top is a rooftop lookout with table and chairs. The view is out into Cook Strait, and we have a constantly changing view of marine traffic out to sea and planes taking off and landing. Such a relaxing and indulgent way to spend our last afternoon in NZ.
As the sun goes down on our day and very nearly our holiday, cheers one and all. 🙂 We hope C & K had an enjoyable anniversary 🙂
Wed 13th March 2013
We enjoyed our evening, with no internet, delicious dinner, although not as nice as the crays we have had at home. We spent the morning having a sleep in, soaking up the view and packing. Greg is going to whip up a crayfish omelet soon (our last indulgence before heading home – we are looking forward to eating some simple food, we have had many good meals here)
Has been a great holiday, very relaxing, NZ has many wonderful views and interesting things to see, as well as windy roads!
Flight leaves at 3.40pm, yes we have both checked the time, so there will be no Ooops moment!!
We are having troubles uploading pphotos, so we will put more up when we get home
Looking forward to seeing or chatting to you soon 🙂
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