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My New Zealand trip inspired 28 pages of journal and hundreds of photos. I had to select among the photos. The last shall be first on this blogsite, so to follow my progress day by day go to number 1 in the New Zealand theme.. Each text page is followed by a photo page.

The long walk to the passenger section

(continued) I was tired after the strain of holding myself steady and shooting on the rolling deck and went in and out partly from need of rest breaks. However, my long term problem with seasickness didn’t appear. If I had a slight indication of it I was able to stop it. Food worked. I tried pressing on my ear lobes, thinking I’d heard it was a remedy. Though it worked for me it did not appear to help a fellow passenger who was having a bad time.

 

When the boat docked in Wellington it took a while to get all those people off. Those who had to go to their cars were given priority and I found a seat near the exit. The beautiful Quebecoise came along and looked round for a seat just after the young fellow sitting next to me stood up and went away so she sat by me and we had a real talk. It seemed both of us tried to say as much as possible in the short time we had. It was a rapid fire exchange and we both enjoyed it and kept going as we went down the gangplank and into the baggage collection area. Her plane back to Canada was leaving the next day and that was that. If only I were 25 years younger. She is a web designer. I do hate smoking though.

 

Wellington Harbour is magnificent with many peninsulas and all the hills overlooking it have houses on them. What views they must have on a good day. I did not have luck with the weather but it was still wonderful to see.

 

Coastline, Queen Charlotte Sound

 

 

I looked for touts for a hostel, or a van with a hostel’s name on it but only found a shuttle bus and asked the driver if he could take me to a backpacker’s where I would likely find a vacancy. He took me to one that had a lot of young people hanging around outside and when I went in and inquired it was full. The staff said all the nearby ones would also be full because of something on that weekend in town and they gave me a map and told me to try Nomad, down a couple of blocks and along three or four. The walk was not too much for me and I got a bed at Nomads.

 

The room was a four bed dorm but had its own bathroom. My room-mates were Phil, a plumber from London who hoped to become a counsellor, and Mark and Erin, two young commercial fishermen from Alaska. In summer they fish and in winter Erin delivers pizzas with great difficulty and Mark snowboards and wants to study.

 

I walked along the road and around the corner from Nomads and up the road a little way to a real treat, ‘The Asian Kitchen’. I tried a Burmese curry and it was perfectly cooked and beautifully flavoured, balm after ‘The Slip Inn’. The owners were Chinese and I enjoyed playing Zhong Guo Hua, China speak, with the lively wife of the couple and her younger sister. If you are ever in Wellington don’t miss this place. Find it.

 

My room mates went out for the evening but the two Alaskan lads were back by ten to rest for more travel the next day. I was dismayed to find the bar attached to the Hostel played very loud music until 1.00a.m. and a crowd of young clubbers chattered, laughed and sang below my window till half past. By then I was too awake to sleep.

 

Phil came in and went to the loo. I wanted to go about then and was concerned when he didn’t seem to come out again. I might have dozed and then a good bit later I got up, guessing he had gone out to party again but found him lying on the floor. This good man and I had a brief but deep talk earlier and he knew I have a heart problem. He didn’t come to bed, in the bunk above me, because he was afraid of disturbing my sleep. When I went to the toilet he slipped into bed. I lay a few minutes with tears in my eyes at his amazing caring act, before I went to sleep.

 

Day eleven

 

After my disturbed night in Wellington I reluctantly rose and set off in search of a ferry and breakfast. As I tramped along I unsuccessfully tried to flag down taxis.

It was not too long before I saw the bulk of a ferry and plodded on more happily.

 

When I came closer I saw it was a Bluebridge ferry and not an Interislander. Though I wasn’t sure if Bluebridge crossed Cook Strait to Picton I went in to enquire. They had more than one service a day and I bought the ticket for the first one, checked in my bags and went to find breakfast. Not far away I ate a vegetable salad then went window shopping.

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 30th, 2009 at 10:07 am and is filed under New Zealand, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.