Wellington

We have arrived on the North Island again by ferry from Picton to Wellington. Wellington is the capital of New Zealand. The city is located in a bay and is surrounded by numerous lower mountains and hills. The weather greeted us with wind and rain, an announcement of the tropical storms from Australia that were predicted. Sometimes the wind blew through the windows, as New Zealanders do not have double glazing, let alone triple glazing. In the evening, the storm became so strong that doors could hardly be opened to go outside. However, as the Easter holidays were approaching, a TV lounge offered a cozy evening of socializing with hostel residents and good movies.

Since the weather brought us sunshine again in the coming days, we climbed Mount Victoria, a lookout point that gave us a view of the entire city, as well as the bay and the harbor. After descending, we visited the city center, the Cubastreet, known for its countless cafés, small shops, and cultural diversity, as well as the Parliament building.

Wellington also has a wonderful museum, the famous Te Papa. In addition to the exhibition on earthquakes, which is important and present everywhere in New Zealand, there was also an exhibition on the film 'Gallipoli', which showed impressive oversized figures that appeared more than lifelike in their precision and attention to detail.

Celebrating Easter in a hostel is not really 'Easter-like', so we went out in the evening with other hostel residents. With Germans, Belgians, English, French, and Canadians, we went to bars, played pool, and ended up in an Irish pub with good live music. Shortly before we continued our journey, we had a chance reunion with Wouter, with whom we played cards in the hut at the Kepler Track. You always meet twice in life!