Wellington

This post should come after Goodbye to South Island, posted two at same time, sorry.

Journey time about 3 hours and after some of the passengers had helped the driver to get back into the bus we set off for a little orientation tour which since the poor man hadn't been to Wellington for about 10 years proved rather time consuming. Since I had phoned to set a time to meet my cousin Frances I was increasingly anxious and ended up collecting my own luggage and rushing up to the room to do a quick clothes swap and out. Lovely to see her and John in their home about half an hour from the centre, we had venison casserole (possibly home shot!!) and caught up on some family news.

You can see my concern over the timer on my camera!!

A lie in, followed by a trip to Te Papa the main Museum where many of my fellow tourers were also wandering around. Also much to everyone's relief  2  of the travellers we had left in Christchurch who were caught up in the earthquake. They so so fortunately had decided not to visit the Cathedral about 10 mins before it happened, all their baggage is impounded in the hotel so they had spent the night outside in the rain and then come to Wellington to get new passports before returning home. Scenes of great joy all round. ( I have also heard from Mike and Lori that unusually they were in Christchurch centre at a meeting with the building shaking alarmingly but fortunately holding up and so had to walk back to their school which was also damaged along cracked and liquified roads. As I had assumed they were much further away from the centre and out of danger I was mortified I had not confirmed they were OK before!)

Any way returning to my trip with Frances after leaving the Museum we did a tour of the centre seeing the parliament building

and some fancy skyscrapers quite a change from everywhere else we've seen so far. The main housing is clapboard and on hills so hope they have good foundations and the house Katherine Mansfield the writer was born in is a fine example.

Close into the centre they are 2 storey further out they tend to be single storey as there is plenty of space and flatter land. We then drove round the bay to one of her favourite bays for lunch before returning back to her house. A trip to the ballet followed in the evening a lovely finale to our meeting.

Note in my room says be checked out by 8.30am to meet driver for trip to Napier I wander what he will be like!