Wellington - Capital City with Capital Letters

My first usage of a Doofer!

In Wellington I was staying with another friend I had made at camp, Petrina. A name that seems to be more popular in NZ than in England! For the first time since Christchurch I had a bed and a room. It was really odd to have walls and when I woke up in the morning I couldn’t just be outside by rolling over and opening the door. I hugely appreciated being able to shut the curtains and then be able to sleep after the sun had risen but it was a sudden change and we know how much I love change! My first night in Welly Petrina gave me my first experience of Burger Fuel, it was like seeing the light. It also has the easiest to order online service. And the milkshakes are top notch, we had a lime one and it was delicious. For those that think GBK is the bomb, this is a lot better!

My first day in Wellington I decided to get Sinbad fixed. I called around a few places and found a guy who could get him fixed that day and quickly. I dropped him off and wandered around

My manly beverage

Wellington. It was the first time that I had voluntarily given away the keys to Sinbad, it was scary and liberating at the same time. I walked down to the harbour and they have a special diving board set up over the water so you can come and jump in safely. Genius. I then spent a few hours in a museum called Te Papa, learning about the history of New Zealand. It was very interesting and I got to see a Giant Squid. It was time for a game of American Football so grabbed some afternoon luncheon and watched the game in a bar that had a sofa in front of the TV. I then received the call from Wayne (the mechanic) saying that Sinbad was fixed and ready to roll. We were whole again, wooo. Petrina called inviting me for a drink at a cool bar called Hangar, based on a plane hanger, strange coincidence.

Petrina was away for the weekend so I had a few options of what to do, so I organised a house party with all of my friends. It was off the chain! I’m hoping Petrina reads this and has a fit before she realises that I don’t have any friends and it was just me on my own. The next day it was a bit overcast and rainy so I sat around for a few hours writing my blog for the other places, ha. Now work out where this blog is written. But once the clouds parted a little I decided on a trip to the zoo.

This is a Sun Bear, cute
but scary!

I love a good zoo and even though Wellington Zoo isn’t the biggest zoo in the world it packs a punch with a few different styles and animals. The first part is they have an onsite vet surgery with glass windows so they can show the patrons what they are doing and all the work that they need to do. Something like 80% of all their animals get treated in that facility. They seemed to have misplaced their penguins. I always wonder when an enclosure is empty, where do the animals go? Do they have send them back to the wild for a holiday? That would be nice wouldn’t it. Then you don’t feel like you have been conned into believing the animals would be there. So yeah, zoo. I did some awesome timing of visiting, I got to see the Sun Bears get fed, I hadn’t experienced a Sun Bear before but they are really cool. They have a flabby neck so that if they get attacked from behind they can turn around 180 degrees in their skin and fight back. They also have a yellow sun on their chest! After a fun look at the traditional Tigers, Cheetahs, Baboons, Giraffes and Deer I entered the Neighbours zone (this is more of a TV show joke than proximity BTW), dedicated to animals from Australia. There was a Tasmanian Devil, Wallabies, Kangaroos and of course, there was a Dingo! The best part is that you literally walk through them, just hanging around by the side of the path. It was the closest I’ve felt to the animals out of any zoo I’ve been to.

Good job I don't have any babies! PS, this is a Dingo, now laugh!

Well this is just cute

All that exciting stuff didn’t even prepare me for the chimps, I watched them for about an hour. They are such interesting creatures, so humanlike in their actions and their interaction. There was a baby baby that just stuck on the mumma chimp, a baby that just played around, a couple of older ones that just hung out and my fave, the chimp that just sat there and picked its arse. I have a disgusting photo that I won’t share with you but will let you picture it, of a chimp with pooey fingers licking them clean. It was disgusting but funny at the same time. No wonder they get ill a lot. A bird was flying around the inside enclosure and flew into a window and fell to the ground, an older chimp picked up said bird and carried it up to the fenced window out to the world. A couple of the younger chimps went along to observe and help. Unfortunately in the process of trying to poke it through the gaps in fence the bird was killed but I think the intention was positive. On a simple symbolic level it was really nice to see the compassion of animals even if the result wasn’t the best.

Family photo

Red Panda doing Red Panda things

After that experience I watched as a Red Panda admired the keeper as he took in more food and cleaned up a bit. So chilled out and then followed the keeper around a bit like a dog. I then went to find a Kiwi, they are notoriously hard to find even in a zoo. They live in a blacked out room with one Kiwi on either side and a footpath down the middle. With very limited red lighting you could hear them but couldn’t spot them. Then I spotted one, that it would appear was the easy part. Trying to take a photo of a Kiwi was even harder, for those that don’t know how hard it is to focus in the dark, it is very hard! But I think I kind of succeeded. I had spent so long at the zoo that I was actually ushered out by one of the keepers, you know you’ve had a good day when they are kicking you out, ha. 

Ok fine, this is an actual Kiwi

Told you I saw one!

For the Sunday I was recommended to go to the Farmer’s Market by a beautiful young lady so thought I

A Farmer's Market

would give it a go. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, even buying some fruit and veg as instructed, it was good. I even went off script and bought a delicious breakfast for myself. Then I wanted to go up the Cable Car and set off to find the bottom station. This was made very difficult by some roads being closed by guess what? Oh yeah, it was a Christmas Parade. I couldn’t have planned my trip better if I had been wanting to see all of the Christmas Parades in New Zealand. For the record, that wasn’t actually my plan. The road closures led to me trying to do a U-turn on a one way street as I needed to go the other way only to realise that once I was facing into the traffic. After gently nudging a lamppost and going round one loop 3 times I decided to call it a day and have a picnic in the garden. 

After American Football Day I joined Petrina and a couple of her friends in a park overlooking the harbour for a picnic. The best part was a slacklining club was practicing in the same park. They had one that must have been 30 metres long, it was impressive seeing someone walk all the way.

Quick visit home

Prior to departing Wellington the next morning I wanted to succeed in riding the Cable Car but the only way to do this whilst parking was driving to the top and taking the car down. This didn’t make logic to me but hey ho. Having got up there I realised that this still meant I paid for parking but didn’t have to walk to the station, very complicated! But I did it anyway, a beautiful view from the top and a fun experience. After taking the car down and then up again I found out that I could have had a nice walk down through the gardens and then get the Cable Car up. This made what the same beautiful young lady had said make sense. So if you go to Wellington, walk down through the pretty gardens and then get the cable car up. 

My plan was to drive up the west coast to Auckland for Christmas. Hmmmm…

Woodie’s Wisdom: If you are having a bad day, don’t try and force it. Things will only get worse!

I wuv wooo

Queenstown - Dream Town

Firstly I want to apologize to my avid fans for the delay in updating my blog, I have been having lots of fun. The good news is that you get to read about it, probably when I get back to the UK, ha. Enjoy.

I arrived in civilization and it was amazing! My first stop was to the backpackers where I was told I could park. Unfortunately they didn’t have any space, retrospectively that was a good thing because they charged a fortune, when you live in your own house $5 here and there is important, remember that. I eventually found a very nice campsite and set up home, made friends with the girl behind the desk, let’s call her Hayley from Burnley. 

This is Queenstown, pretty pretty

Then I made my way into town, I can’t really explain the feeling of arriving here. Given that I had come from Invercargill and other places where people were the exception. Having people around doing stuff was fantastic and I immediately felt at home. Being traditionally English I saw a sign that said “pub” and I was caught. I went in and made my first friend in Queenstown, the barman, also from England. There was a trend emerging, there aren’t actually that many people from New Zealand that live in Queenstown, lots of foreigners working and traveling. At The Pub I walked outside on a beautiful afternoon, sat down next to a group of 3 who were eating what can only be described as poo. Fortunately it didn’t taste like it and they were very friendly. After politely asking if they wanted to be my friends they said yes, who wouldn’t! We had some beers and then went to the movies to watch The Hunger Games. It was a good first day.

A sign from my breakfast spot

The next day was what have started to referring to as “American Football Day”, most people call it Monday. I started out with a visit to Hayley to book some activities. I decided to start small and booked some white water rafting for Tuesday. I spent about 7 hours in a bar called Malbas watching the games, it was an awesome day and made friends with the people who were coming for job interviews. Obviously I looked like a secret owner who wanted to get to know the staff. I also had some of the best wings I have had, unfortunately they didn’t have BBQ sauce, who does that?!

My attempt at a pre-rafting selfie

A paddle high five

Tuesday morning I had a wander around a bit of Queenstown village before I got picked up for rafting. It’s a very pretty tourist town, there are so few Kiwis around. So many British people working in all the shops and activity centres. For those that haven’t been, it comes across like a ski resort but is equally busy in both winter and summer. The drive to the rafting start was sketchy, on a road that wasn't really wide enough for the bus. One turn it felt like we were at the end of The Italian Job. My rafting group ended up being 4 English people and 2 Hollandish people, it's like they put the Europeans together. It was the most fun rafting I’ve done. I was sitting at the front so was the first to get a face full of icy fresh water. My favorite part was going through a tunnel followed by a huge drop of rapids. A great rush and who doesn’t love getting sprayed in the face! After I returned to town I went and entered a poker tournament that I had heard about the day before. It was really good fun and the people playing were really cool. Unfortunately I didn’t come away with any money but I’m blaming that more on luck that skill, obviously.

Bring me ma babyback ribs

The weather on Wednesday was really average so I went and did some shopping. It was one of the most successful shopping trips I’ve been on. I found trousers that fit, not only did they fit but they are also stretchy so one can lunge in them. What an amazing pair of trousers, I fell in love. I also bought some boardies because I could. My back was hurting from driving Sinbad around so I decided that I would treat myself to a massage. Hector was so calm and quiet when he introduced himself to me. However, when that door was closed he was mean and aggressive and it hurt. But afterwards I felt a lot less tight. Fun fact about Hector, he was missing a toe on one foot. These are the exciting tidbits that you find out about someone when you are looking at their toes for half an hour. The best part about the day was my lunch, I was recommended a place called Flame for their ribs, duly eaten and thoroughly enjoyed. Probably the best ribs I’ve ever had, it’s like they were made my Carlsberg. Not a bad day!

My view from lunch

The next morning I wanted something to do that was a bit more chilled out. so had another chat with Hayley, very knowledgeable. She recommended a trip up the Skyline gondola and there was a beautiful view of Queenstown. I had a delicious buffet lunch with said view and headed back down the gondola after taking some tourist photos, and by that I mean photos of tourists taking photos! My favourite part was listening to 2 girls discuss their first world problems, they were definitely on their GAP yah. Quote of the day: “it’s not my fault that my daddy chooses to pay for my stuff”, boom! That was the whole conversation, I had to hold myself back from getting involved. I had a wander around town again and the frozen yoghurt shop I had walked past a couple of days before was actually open so I went in and made friends. I accidentally made friends with the owners because I thought this girl was chatting to someone whilst they took a piss. Fortunately she wasn’t, it was just the toilet and the kitchen were opposite each other, it was very funny but you had to be there. Coincidentally she was the owner and from near Oxford I think so we fell to talking. Always nice to make friends with people that sell food. In the evening I hung out at the campsite and made friends with a single mother from French Guyana, the child (aged 2.5) was adorable but just ran wild. I don’t know how she could travel for 3 months with a small child, I would probably have just put it up for adoption.

Thanksgiving Day Football

Friday was Thanksgiving in America due to time difference so I went back to the pub to watch the American football games. There turned out to be a lot of Americans from Seattle so I joined in with the excitement. For those that know my true allegience, I was quietly routing against the Seahawks because they ruined my dreams. After the game I left for Wanaka, where the adventure was just about to start…

Woodie’s Wisdom: Visit Queenstown!

This made me chuckle because
I'm a child