when i told people i was going to wellington, they all said i should take the overlander..it's a train that takes the entire day to go from auckland to wellington..it's supposed to be really scenic, and allow you to see beautiful areas of the north island..so i signed myself up for the train, it left at 0725 on a monday morning..the ride itself was okay, nothing spectacular..new zealand is pretty, but i felt as though i had already seen prettier areas than what i saw during that train ride..it didn't help that mt ruapehu was completely invisible when the train went by, but it's supposed to be an awesome view most of the time..i couldn't even tell there was anything there, the whole area was enveloped in a mist..anywho, as i was walking out of the train station, i noticed that someone was busking in the lobby area of the train station..i liked the music, he seemed pretty good..there were lots of people standing around watching, and cameras filming the whole thing..i stayed until he was done playing, but didn't know who it was, and felt too stupid to ask someone..(later on in the week i found out it was john mayer, doing publicity stuff for his concert that took place the next evening in wellington!)..
i found a hostel, and elected to put myself in a girls only dorm room..new zealand has a really good system of hostels, the infrastructure of backpacking is set up well in the entire country..
during the next three days i walked all over..unlike auckland, a visitor can walk all over wellington and see just about everything..it's the capital of the country, but only has about 150,000 people..(the biggest city, auckland, has over a million)..the nickname is windy welly, and i figured out why pretty quickly..the wind never seems to stop blowing!! i walked through te papa, the national museum..its really well done, and huge..it takes hours if you read and look at everything..the displays are put together well, and some of them are interactive for kids..i walked through the botanical gardens, which i didn't think were all that great..i took the cable car up to the top of a nearby hill and was able to look out over the city..i walked to the parliament area..the prime ministers office is in a building called the beehive, and it's UGLY..who knows why they chose that particular architect's design..it's awful..i took the guided tour as well, which i enjoyed for the informative aspects..it was neat to learn about the different areas of the building, what different rooms are used for..my favourite was the room where the queen sits when she visits..(which is practically never)..i was stunned to learn that there are rules still followed about who gets to walk where when the queen is sitting..if a member of parliament walks across in front of the queen he/she will be thrown out of parliament and forced to resign his/her seat!! i thought that kind of stuff was done with a long time ago, but this is a country far different from the US..technically, the head of the country is the queen of england..strange..i also walked to a monument that has something to do with antarctica..i'm not sure on the details, but there is a line where if you look at a particular angle, and could see that far, the next land you would see is antarctica..nifty..
my next week trip was to christchurch..in the canterbury area of the south island..it's home to the international airport of the south island..wine country, for the most part..lots of farming in general i think..the international antarctic centre is near the airport, i really enjoyed that visit...there is sooooo much i don't know about antarctica..they have displayed the new zealand history in antarctica, among other information..there is also a room where you can experience a blizzard..before going in the room you put on boots, and a winter jacket..when the "storm" starts, you can feel the wind picking up and the temperature dropping..it's not the temperatures that get you, it's the wind..it's awful!! but it was a neat experience..coming out of the room i felt like i was in the tropics:)..christchurch has nice gardens as well, and i found a yummy chocolate/fudge shop..who knew gluten free truffles could be so tasty? one afternoon i took the bus over to lyttleton, a small town near christchurch..it's picturesque, and has a building with a big ball on a pole...(think times square for new years eve, when the ball drops to mark the exact start of the new year)..this ball used to drop to let ship captains know exactly what time it was..that way they were able to make sure the clocks on their ships were right, and that way they knew they could properly figure out navigation..inside that building there used to be a family, it's now a museum..they used to live like early settlers lived in the US..christchurch has a number of churches, and old buildings that look distinctly british..i found a rugby store that had jerseys from every team imaginable..i ended up buying a jersey for the antarctic rugby team..fun:)
my last trip was to queenstown..when it was built, it was w/out a name..someone came, and as it was being finished, they said it was fit for a queen..hence the name..not big on originality, hee hee..it's the outdoor activity capital of the country..you can spend a LOT of money in queenstown..that's where bungy jumping originated, and you can still go with that company if you so desire..you can also go canyon swinging, skydiving, spend an hour on the shotover jetboat, etc..i took the cable car up to the top of one of the nearby hills that looks out over the city..as queenstown is farther south than anywhere else i visited, it is farther along in the season change than anywhere else..the leaves were beautiful, all colours of the rainbow..up at the top of the hill i rode the luge that's been built up there...that's my idea of fun, i could've spent a few more hours up there..i walked through the botanical gardens, which didnt impress me much..i found a british lolly shop, which was fun..i took a day trip to milford sound, which was beautiful..the bus drive to and from was long, but really pretty..we drove through a one lane tunnel, and on a steep, turny road..the boat ride up and down the sound was really pretty..(on a side note, a kayaker who had come from australia across the tasman sea lost his life just 30km outside of the sound just a couple years ago)..i loved being outside all day, i definitely wasn't impressed with the lunch that was part of the tour..but i rather expected that..one of the most disappointing experiences of queenstown was when i discovered that my atm card from the states wouldn't work..when i finally managed to ring my bank, i was informed that there was no atm card registered to my account..it turned out that it had been so long since i had used it that it had been kicked out of the system..argh..which left me with almost no cash, and no access to any cash..i had credit cards, but no way of getting any cash..ugh..in queenstown there is a restaurant called fergburger..i had heard about it from another traveller in christchurch, who said i had to eat there, so i did..BIG burgers, and BIG servings of chips..YUMMY!! the worst part of my experience in queenstown took place the day i was scheduled to fly back to auckland..apparently the domestic airport in auckland was completely socked in by fog that morning..completely..it was shut down..no flights going in or out..which meant that many flights to and around the rest of the country didn't go either..i ended up stuck in queenstown an extra night, which really upset me, as dan and i had planned an evening out that night, and i had only a limited number of nights left with him before leaving the country..queenstown isn't an international airport, and flights can't go in or out after sunset, which is pretty early..by the time the fog cleared in auckland, flights all over the country were disrupted..lots of flights ended up being cancelled, which stranded a lot of people..the airlines put people up in hotels, but i was really really really disappointed not to be back in auckland that evening..i did get back the next day..
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