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| The view towards Wellington from Lower Hutt where we were staying. The weather never totally cleard up while we were here. |
| Glenn's Journal 01-11-03 & 01-12-03 New Zealand Saturday morning and we were up and checked out just after 10:00 am this morning. We drove back into town and parked in thte two hour parking along the beachfront. We walked around town for the next two hours including a stop at the Khatmandu store (like a REI back home) where we replenished some socks and a towel for me. We also bought some cutlery and some new locks for our backpacks. We stopped and checked some e-mail. We also stopped by a Kodak photo store that was owned by Glenn Roberts. I had forgotten all about my photo store that I owned in Napier. After our walk around town we walked along the boardwalk before grabbing some lunch at Subway and enjoying it on a bench along the boardwalk in the sun!!! We decided that there was not any reason to stay another day in Napier so we hit the road to Wellington. On the way to Wellington we stopped for a short period of time at Te Mata Peak which provided a spectacular view back over Hastings and the surrounding country side. We finally hit the road around 2:30 pm as we had a long 4+ hour drive to Wellington ahead of us. The drive to Wellington was a long one but the day was sunny and promising. We had also called ahead about accomodation for the night and found a cabin at the Top 10 Hutt Holiday park which is located in Lower Hutt, just north of Wellington. We arrived at the Holiday park around 6:30 pm, quickly checked in and dropped our bags off in the room before heading back out. On the way into town I had seen a racetrack that had Saturday night stockcar races. I had not been since I was much younger and Erin had never been. She even took a book to read thinking that it would be boring. The races started at 7:00 pm and we had arrived at 7:30 pm so we had not missed much. They had scheduled 23 events in all for the evening including stockcars, mini stockcars, modifieds, sidecars, and a few others including a demolition derby to end the night. After a few races we both really got into it where we could keep up with the leader and still enjoy all of the wrecks and banging going on around the small oval track. We even rooted for certain cars as the night went on. Dinner was at the track and was corn dogs (I was not sure what the meat was!!) along with soda and fries. Erin was not too excited about the meal but she did enjoy the racing. We stayed through the end of the demolition derby and arrived back home around 11:00 pm. We stayed up and read for a while before calling it a night. 01-12-03 New Zealand Today we awoke to more rain. We, probably me more than Erin, were not too happy about more rain. After yesterday being much nicer we were not ready for another day of rain. The day remained overcast and rainy throughout. We slept in and stayed around the cabin for a little while this morning hoping that it would clear up but to no avail. We finally went into Wellington and spent a little time at the weekend market before spending the rest of the afternoon at the Te Papa Museum. The museum provided us with hours of things to see and do including New Zealand's history and Maori cultures. We watched some videos on how people ended up in New Zealand and why. We also learnt about how New Zealand was formed and the ecology of the country. It is very well designed and provides for hours of free entertainment. The big attraction at the museum was the Lord of the Rings exhibit. This special exhibit demonstrated how the movie was made, costumes of many of the main characters, and some of the many locations around New Zealand where the movie was filmed. We both enjoyed learning more about the Lord of the Rings and all of the work that went into it. Amazing!!! We left the museum around 4:45pm and, since it was still raining, decided on a movie. We had not seen "Catch Me If You Can" so we walked over to the nearby theater. The next showing was at 6:30 pm so we wasted time around the mall and had dinner before the movie started. The movie was worth seeing and ended around 9:00 pm. They didn't even show many previews. Yeah!!! We returned home around 9:30 pm where we both read our books until well after 11:00 pm. We were hoping for a nicer day tomorrow. |