Another reasonable start time for the day as we weren’t leaving until 9.00 am. Breakfast was in the lovely dining room and initially looked really good. However, there were only two members of staff on and the young girl seemed to be responsible for ensuring that all the dishes were kept filled up, she didn’t manage too well, and taking the coffee pot around to the table. The other one, a man, was just wondering around and collecting a few plates up and wasn’t at all pro-active. No croissants or muffins for Ian this morning so quite disappointing, although there was some beautiful fresh fruit!! Linda is beginning to miss her blueberries but making do with melon and kiwi fruit.
On to the coach for a tour of Wellington. We drove through the city, stopping at the government buildings. Their Parliament is housed in a building that is nicknamed the beehive, for obvious reasons and adjacent to their old building in fine marble .
We drove past a wind measuring device that stands about 10 metres high. The nearer the pointer gets to the horizontal, the higher the wind strength. Wellington is not nicknamed the windy city for nothing.
We drove to the top of Mount Victoria for a stunning view of the city. The houses on the slopes have to have special lifts to get their shopping from their car and to bring the wheelie bin down for collection.
Back to the city, we drove along the waterfront where we walked yesterday evening and then for our final stop of our coach tour at Te Papa, New Zealand’s modern and inventive museum. In there we stood in a simulator of a house to experience an earthquake, saw some beautiful photographs by successful photo-journalist New Zealander Brian Brake, and saw a giant squid which was 4.2metres long with eyes the size of footballs.
While we were in the museum we said our goodbyes to Lindi (from Australia), Terri and Bobbi from Oxford and Sarah from Bristol who were leaving the coach trip to stay in Wellington.
On the coach by 12.45 pm and our final trip with the group. At the ferry terminal we had to check our own luggage in, similar to an airport but without the restrictions, and then we were able to get on the ferry with the rest of the group. We sat with Pam and George, who we had met in Auckland and got on with very well. Ian got some stunning photographs of Cook Straight and Tory Sound.
We were thrilled that the boat seem to glide through the water and that the surface of the water was relatively calm; however, a New Zealander said that it was very windy and because of that it was not a good crossing!
At Picton we said our final farewells to Pam and George as they were picking up a car and going down to Christchurch before flying over to Australia for a few days and then back to Dunedin to finish of their holiday with their son and family.
Picton is a very small harbour town. It is very pretty and has quite a few eating places. We found our motel very easily and were impressed by the standard of the room. We were given a bottle of milk so that we could make a drink before walking back into town for our evening meal. We went to Oxleys and had a fantastic Surf and Turf made up of rib-eye steak and a kebab of scallops. We walked up the main street, via the supermarket to buy some supplies, then back to the motel to write the blog before bed time.
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