Friday 15 October 2004

Week 86, Day 566

Four days later and still feeling a little under the weather. Alex and I have had to chill out a little as my 'not feeling too well' turned into 'I can't get out of bed, my head hurts too much'. So while I've felt really guilty that my body has betrayed me and spoiled part of the trip for both of us, it's been nice to be able to get a chance to recoup as well.

From Kaikoura, we headed to Picton again, and decided to take the plane across to the North island instead of the Ferry because a) it was quicker and b)the scenery would be great from above. And it was. Got some nice shots from the tiny plane we were in (there were only 8 passengers!) and arrived into Wellington Airport without experiencing much turbulence.

I really like Wellington as a city - well, what I saw of it. I think it's prettier than Auckland, and it seems to have some nice places to go to if you want to have some fun. Unfortunately, the two days I spent there I didn't do much. We did go to the Zoo on the second day when I felt a little better, but I had rush back as my head started to pound again. At the Zoo, we tried to spot the only Kiwi they had but he just didn't want to make himself known. We did see a lot of primates which definitely made up for it. Chimpanzees, monkeys and baboons (I have the dodgy but humourous photos to prove it), among others like the Red Panda and Leemahs.

To make up for the lack of Kiwi sighting in Wellington, we decided to take the quick walk through the bird sanctuary at Mt Bruce, which is on the way to Napier. There we saw not one, but both Kiwis they had there. Now I can go home completely satisified.

In Napier (a nice beachside town, though you can't swim at the beach because it's too rough), we went to the National Aquarium of New Zealand and marvelled at the Piranhas, massive Squid, Izzy the Crocodile, turtles, sharks and lots more. Deciding not to do too much again in the evening as I was still a little under the weather, we went to the bar beneath our hostel as we had spotted some good meal deals.

We arrived just as they were about to start their Trivia night, so we joined in. We managed to get all the answers right in the first round and slowly got worse towards the end, but we did come third out of five and scored ourselves a $20 bar tab. To top it off, we had already had a cheap meal ($10 for food and a drink)and free drinks (we had free drinks vouchers for joining the quiz and staying at the hostel). So we spoiled ourselves with expensive drinks - I had an Illusion Shaker and Alex wanted to try Bailey's Glide. Not bad for a quiet night.

We got into Taupo today and it has grown since I was here a few years ago. We're staying at the nicest hostel yet - Tiki Lodge. It's brand new and our room is meant to house five people but there's only the two of us so we've got tonnes of space, PLUS an ensuite. And it costs just as much as any other hostel. Not bad at all. As we got in early, we headed straight for the Huka Falls walk. Very pretty. Tomorrow we wanted to go on the Quad Bike tour but they're all booked out no thanks to a conference (stupid working people!). Instead, we're going to go Jet Boating and see as many free places as we can. Hey, money runs thin by this time of your trip!

Nothing else to report really. Only a week left of NZ...I'll be sad to go.


x Vanessa