This was the first two night stopover on the Grand Adventurer tour. Both my roommates and myself took advantage of it and slept in. We got up around mid-morning and went downstairs for some breakfast. There was some more of our group having breakfast as well. We also saw a gathering of people from our group in the lobby of the hotel. They were off on an optional activity called the Quad Bikes, a half-day excursion riding on 4-wheel all-terrain vehicles. For the rest of us, it was a completely free day to do as we pleased.

Stuart was the first one out to do his own thing. John and I thought it was a good time to get some laundry done while we had the opportunity. We weren't the only ones who thought of this, as there were quite a number of other people on our tour lined up for the washer and dryer. I also took advantage of the time to write up several postcards to send home to friends and family, as well to my friend Mandy, whom I had met on my Spain & Portugal trip the previous year, and was to meet up with after the tour when I travel to Melbourne, Australia. I had actually purchased the postcards on my first day in Auckland, but this was the first opportunity I had to write them, as I waited for the washing and drying cycles to finish. After his laundry was done, John was off to explore Wellington on his own, while I finished up writing my postcards. When I was finally finished, I headed out to the Museum of New Zealand, also called Te Papa, meaning "Our Place". Along the way, I mailed my postcards. As I continued walking, I heard a knocking on a window to one of the restaurants as I walked by. I looked in to see Stuart and Claire inside having a bite to eat. I went in and chatted with them for a while. They were just coming back from the Museum and were stopping off for lunch before heading back to the hotel. Claire's fiancée, Eric, wasn't with them, as he was off on the Quad Bikes excursion. I continued with my walk through Wellington, heading down to the harbour where the Museum was located. Entrance to the Museum was free, although there were several donation boxes around the inside for visitors to contribute money to "keep admission free". I bumped into Charlie and Michael (the one kind enough to supply so many of his photos for my site). A musician, Michael had bought a guitar earlier and was carrying it around, strumming it. Later on the trip, we would find him to be an excellent musician. I explored nearly every corner of the Museum. I found it to be very interesting, with a wealth of information about New Zealand.

When I was done, I headed back to the hotel. The weather got noticeably chillier and windier. I got back to the hotel room to find Stuart passed out in bed. John popped back in for a while and said there was a group of us getting together later on to go out for dinner, and then he left again.

After several hours of doing absolutely nothing, we convened in the hotel bar and met up with several other people from our tour. We also saw Gavin welcoming some new additions to our tour who would be joining us the next day when we would be heading into the South Island. We all had different ideas of where to go for dinner, so in the end we split up into a few separate groups and headed in our own directions. Chad had heard about a really good place with lots of good food for a good price. So John, myself, April, Christine, Tyrees, Sheree, Vicky and Ranny (who we also knew as a Second Generation Filipino Educated in Hawaii) all followed Chad. We weren't disappointed as the food was plentiful and excellent. Vicky, who hailed from the U.K., did find her vegetables to be "a bit too raw". Everybody else who had vegetables with their meal thought they were fine. Our waiter, who was also originally from the U.K., then realized, "Oh, you want them English-style!" So he came back later with much softer and "cooked" vegetables for Vicky. She took quite a bit of abuse from us all that night about her raw veggies. April also took some kidding from us for having her Quad Bikes "license" revoked because she was being a danger to all the other drivers, and so she was relegated to being a passenger for the rest of the Quad Bikes activity.

Te Papa, the Museum of New Zealand

Wellington harbour