Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Windy Wellington
Welcome to ‘Windy Wellington’ everyone! For the time we’ve been in New Zealand, I’ve seen amazingly beautiful and eclectic landscapes, and small cities each with their own unique character. Then we came to Wellington. Awesome city! Lots of cool stores to shop in, really cool places to eat, plenty of beautiful scenic water spots, and everything is SO artsy! Really interesting city!!
We arrived in Wellington after traveling all morning – our bus didn’t do much touring on the way, it was basically an ‘express’ bus from National Park to Wellington since the trip itself wasn’t a short one. It must have taken around 4 or 5 hours (including some scenic stops) to drive the whole way.
Shortly after leaving National Park (around 9:30 am) we made our first mini-stop. During our drive into Ohakune, our guide told us the first thing that was required of us was to take a picture with the huge carrot by the side of the road; of course, we didn’t deny doing that! For some reason, carrots are huge in Ohakune; they have tons of festivals and competitions involving carrots there.
Next, we stopped at the Gumboot Manor in Taihape to grab a mid-morning snack. While it was still a bit early for lunch, Henk and I were feeling a bit Hawaiian and split a ham, cheese, and pineapple sandwich and some chips. After placing our order – surprise – we were given a cool ‘flag’ to bring to our table until it was ready: a mini gumboot! (I might have had a little fun with that!)
After Gumboot Manor, we took some photographs at one of the spots of a famous scene from Lord of the Rings trilogy: Remember when Arwen controlled the water from the river, parting it to let Frodo cross safely to the other side, then letting the water rush back in to knock the ring wraiths and their horses off their feet? Yep, this is the river where that scene was filmed! Take a look. The view is just stunning.
Before arriving in Wellington, we took a final stop in a town called Bulls. During World War II, the town was an exporter of milk to the soldiers. Obviously, for anyone who isn’t familiar with the town, this resulted in quite a few laughs… all of the packaging for the milk was labelled “Milk from Bulls.” I didn’t know this at the time (Henk informed me later) but every store and sign in the town makes sure to include the word “Bull” in their marketing: for example, one of the candy stores is called ‘Irresist-I-Bull’ and one of the clothing stores is called ‘Labulls;’ even the cops get in on the action – the police station labels themselves ‘Const-A-Bull.’
Finally, around 2 pm in the afternoon, we got into Wellington and got checked into the Nomads here in the city. All of the rooms in the hostel are ensuite, so we were stuck paying a hefty sum for our first night, and resolved to map out and visit other hostels the next morning to find something a bit cheaper. For the rest of the night, we walked around for a bit attempting to find hostels, made a quick grocery store run and had a cheap pasta bake from the hostel bar… (it was filling, at least, but a bit cold) then finished the evening relaxing with some reality TV episodes of Daisy of Love. (Good show for when you really, reeeeally don’t want to utilize those brain cells!)
The next morning we checked out of our hostel, grabbed some breakfast, and tossed our luggage into the storage room. Again we decided to look for the hostels. As we started walking, we realized that Wellington is an extremely artsy city! One of their bridges near the water was wood-carved with the shapes of whales and birds. Furthermore, there was a really cool fountain which created small mountains of foam. Of course we didn’t pass up the chance to play in that! As we were walking along the Wellington Harbour, I spotted a memorial I had to have a picture with since my grandfather is a former US Marine; the memorial celebrated the United States Marines and their arrival in New Zealand: ‘…To Serve In The Pacific Theatre Of War.’ Towards the end of our harbour walk, Henk spotted a huge slide in the park and insistent I go on it so he could take some pictures. Here you go!
After a while exploring, we still didn’t find anything hostel-wise, (but got a good walk around some interesting parts of the city) so we decided to visit the Te Papa museum. Free to enter, we started at the first floor, and then went to the top and worked our way down each level. The museum is an interesting mix as far as museums go – it was part science, part history, part art! We learned about the colossal squid, (and created our own squids on computers!) found out even more about Maori culture, (including taking pictures in a life-sized marae (Maori meeting house) and saw some cool modern photography based on traditional Maori imagery.
After the museum, we finally looked at some hostels for the next few nights. We settled on Wellywood – a pretty cool ‘Hollywood in Wellington’ themed hostel, and about $30/night cheaper than Nomads. To celebrate our victory, we had an extremely delicious dinner at the award-winning (but surprisingly, relatively inexpensive) ‘Great India’ – curry, butter chicken, naan bread and coconut rice -- and we cleaned our plates completely! The best thing about Indian food: you have that completely full yet not ‘stuffed’ feeling after your meal! We highly recommend visiting this place if you’re ever in Wellington! Check it out: http://www.greatindia.co.nz
Our plan for today was to catch up on sleep – plus we accomplished seeing the movie Ice Age 3 in 3D! It’s so great to do some of those ‘everyday’ things on a trip this long… I think we’d go pretty crazy otherwise! Tomorrow, we’ll probably do a city tour, and visit the Parliament ‘Bee-Hives.’ And we still have our Lord of the Rings tour coming up! So stay tuned!!
Thanks,
Francesca
We arrived in Wellington after traveling all morning – our bus didn’t do much touring on the way, it was basically an ‘express’ bus from National Park to Wellington since the trip itself wasn’t a short one. It must have taken around 4 or 5 hours (including some scenic stops) to drive the whole way.
Shortly after leaving National Park (around 9:30 am) we made our first mini-stop. During our drive into Ohakune, our guide told us the first thing that was required of us was to take a picture with the huge carrot by the side of the road; of course, we didn’t deny doing that! For some reason, carrots are huge in Ohakune; they have tons of festivals and competitions involving carrots there.
Next, we stopped at the Gumboot Manor in Taihape to grab a mid-morning snack. While it was still a bit early for lunch, Henk and I were feeling a bit Hawaiian and split a ham, cheese, and pineapple sandwich and some chips. After placing our order – surprise – we were given a cool ‘flag’ to bring to our table until it was ready: a mini gumboot! (I might have had a little fun with that!)
After Gumboot Manor, we took some photographs at one of the spots of a famous scene from Lord of the Rings trilogy: Remember when Arwen controlled the water from the river, parting it to let Frodo cross safely to the other side, then letting the water rush back in to knock the ring wraiths and their horses off their feet? Yep, this is the river where that scene was filmed! Take a look. The view is just stunning.
Before arriving in Wellington, we took a final stop in a town called Bulls. During World War II, the town was an exporter of milk to the soldiers. Obviously, for anyone who isn’t familiar with the town, this resulted in quite a few laughs… all of the packaging for the milk was labelled “Milk from Bulls.” I didn’t know this at the time (Henk informed me later) but every store and sign in the town makes sure to include the word “Bull” in their marketing: for example, one of the candy stores is called ‘Irresist-I-Bull’ and one of the clothing stores is called ‘Labulls;’ even the cops get in on the action – the police station labels themselves ‘Const-A-Bull.’
Finally, around 2 pm in the afternoon, we got into Wellington and got checked into the Nomads here in the city. All of the rooms in the hostel are ensuite, so we were stuck paying a hefty sum for our first night, and resolved to map out and visit other hostels the next morning to find something a bit cheaper. For the rest of the night, we walked around for a bit attempting to find hostels, made a quick grocery store run and had a cheap pasta bake from the hostel bar… (it was filling, at least, but a bit cold) then finished the evening relaxing with some reality TV episodes of Daisy of Love. (Good show for when you really, reeeeally don’t want to utilize those brain cells!)
The next morning we checked out of our hostel, grabbed some breakfast, and tossed our luggage into the storage room. Again we decided to look for the hostels. As we started walking, we realized that Wellington is an extremely artsy city! One of their bridges near the water was wood-carved with the shapes of whales and birds. Furthermore, there was a really cool fountain which created small mountains of foam. Of course we didn’t pass up the chance to play in that! As we were walking along the Wellington Harbour, I spotted a memorial I had to have a picture with since my grandfather is a former US Marine; the memorial celebrated the United States Marines and their arrival in New Zealand: ‘…To Serve In The Pacific Theatre Of War.’ Towards the end of our harbour walk, Henk spotted a huge slide in the park and insistent I go on it so he could take some pictures. Here you go!
After a while exploring, we still didn’t find anything hostel-wise, (but got a good walk around some interesting parts of the city) so we decided to visit the Te Papa museum. Free to enter, we started at the first floor, and then went to the top and worked our way down each level. The museum is an interesting mix as far as museums go – it was part science, part history, part art! We learned about the colossal squid, (and created our own squids on computers!) found out even more about Maori culture, (including taking pictures in a life-sized marae (Maori meeting house) and saw some cool modern photography based on traditional Maori imagery.
After the museum, we finally looked at some hostels for the next few nights. We settled on Wellywood – a pretty cool ‘Hollywood in Wellington’ themed hostel, and about $30/night cheaper than Nomads. To celebrate our victory, we had an extremely delicious dinner at the award-winning (but surprisingly, relatively inexpensive) ‘Great India’ – curry, butter chicken, naan bread and coconut rice -- and we cleaned our plates completely! The best thing about Indian food: you have that completely full yet not ‘stuffed’ feeling after your meal! We highly recommend visiting this place if you’re ever in Wellington! Check it out: http://www.greatindia.co.nz
Our plan for today was to catch up on sleep – plus we accomplished seeing the movie Ice Age 3 in 3D! It’s so great to do some of those ‘everyday’ things on a trip this long… I think we’d go pretty crazy otherwise! Tomorrow, we’ll probably do a city tour, and visit the Parliament ‘Bee-Hives.’ And we still have our Lord of the Rings tour coming up! So stay tuned!!
Thanks,
Francesca
1 Comments:
hey guys,
Ik krijg water in mijn mond bij die menukaart van greatindian!!
X
mams
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