Nearly to the South Island

Kia Ora from Wellington (well kind of – I am on a boat between Wellington ad Picton right now)!

The past two days since I left Auckland have been really wet but fun! Let me tell ya what happened….

Saturday Evening we left Auckland and took an hour flight south to Wellington, the Capitol of New Zealand. On the bus to the airport we ran into a girl from Colorado who is studying to be a teacher through the same program as us! Such a small would and about to get smaller…. So we get to the airport, check in (my bag was underweight for once yay!) and then run into both the Morgans!!! They (and the girl from Colorado) are driving through the South Island over the holidays. We all took the same flight to Wellington and then went our separate way. It was so awesome seeing them!

This is in Wellington airport ... scary i know... 

Jordan, Brittany and I made our way to our hostel and got settled in and went to a restaurant called Public. We got a bottle of wine and a burger and it was DEEEELICIOUS! We then headed back to the hostel and went to bed. After a rough night of sleep (the fourth girl in our room was really rude and was super loud all night long/oh and the bed creaked soooo badly) I woke up around 7.

Sunday:

 It. Rained. ALL. Day. Long.  But that didn’t stop us J ! We put on our rain jackets and headed out. We walked around and took the cable car up the main hill in Wellington to the Botanical Gardens. It was really beautiful and the view of the bay was great (except for the rain and fog). We walked around a bit and then decided we didn’t want to see the plants in the rain. Then we headed back down…

We headed towards the waterfront and got a light lunch from an Italian place. I had a really good salad and it was nice to dry off a bit.

Then we took a 20 minute bus ride to Miramar where the Weta Workshop was. So Wellington is really famous for Lord of the Rings (LOTR) and calls itself “Middle Earth” because so many of the scenes from the movie was filmed in the area. The Weta Workshop  is so awesome. The people who worked on the LOTR/narnia and tons more created this workshop. 

It was super awesome seeing all the cool LOTR stuff – I am not really into the movies but it was a fun experience.

We thought it was a great idea to walk to the next town that had a movie theater that we wanted to see inside …so we walked...in the rain… a really long time… not the best idea… BUT we FINALLY made it in one wet piece.

We stopped into a beautiful theater called the Roxy. It is soooo cool inside! All the LOTR movies were screened here and it is just a really cool place. After exploring we went back into the city.

We walked around, did a bit of shopping (got some really cute necklaces) and then realized we were exhausted.  We got a quick dinner (subway – tastes the same here) and then went back to the hostel and watched a movie and then headed to bed.

Monday:

We slept in and woke up at 8 J and realized it was BEAUTIFUL and SUNNY outside! We headed out and had a wonderful breakfast along the waterfront.

After sitting outside and soaking up the sun for about an hour we headed to the national museum called Te Papa. It was so nice! I really loved the museum, it had a lot of stuff over the Maori and British culture. They also had a nice lounge with coffee and drinks. It was a great time and I learned heaps!

We had a nice relaxing drink at Mac’s bar (pretty awesome beer) and then headed into the city away from the water and continued shopping. I bought a sweater and a couple shirts and just walked around. After some lunch and more walking around we went back to the hostel – grabbed our stuff and headed  to the Intercruise line to take the ferry to Picton.

The ferry is 3.5 hours long and super rocky – I took some anti-sea sick meds before hand and have had a pretty good trip so far. It just got smoother so us girls got a bottle of wine so I am going to go and enjoy it!

We start our bus tour tomorrow at noon! I will keep you updated when I get internet next! 

Much love from almost to the South Island!

Update:

I am now on the South Island and it is amazing cant wait to tell you about it J

ps. i will upload pictures later  - it takes forever here on this wifi ugh