Greetings from New Zealand! We are thrilled to be back here, much sooner than anticipated. NZ was one of our hands-down favorite stops on our RTW trip in 2011, and it has not disappointed us on visit #2 either.
We has a relatively easy 12+ hour flight from LAX to Auckland, although losing December 1st entirely was a little disorienting. After a 5-hour layover in Auckland and a 50-minute flight to Wellington, we jumped right in to seeing what NZ's capital city has to offer.
Over our 2 night stay in Wellington, we began stretching our legs in anticipation of our 5-day "tramp" (hike) which begins tomorrow, Dec 10. We visited the city's botanical gardens, and went for a couple hours walk in the preserved area called Otari-Wilton's Bush. Both regions were replete with
tui birds, whose croaky-whistley-hooting sound entertained us while we walked.
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| Spiral cactus from the botanical garden |
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| Tui bird - captivating for minutes on end! |
We also spent a good amount of time exploring Wellington, a very laid-back port city with lots of places for lounging - including urban beachfront and an abundance of bean bag chairs outside of pubs. Wellington is a University town and, as the capital, the home of Parliament. It seemed to us that people got all dressed up to be industrious, but not much actually goes on there. It culminates in a chill, friendly vibe that made for a great kick-off to our trip.
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| Especially when people are giving out free beer and insist you sit in a bean bag to drink it. |
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| 5PM on a Tuesday - Wellingtonians know how to live! |
It did seem to us that we were there at just the perfect time - that it was probably a couple of the first few beautiful days of summer and everyone leapt at the chance to be outside and bare some skin. Of course, this being New Zealand, the blue skies and sunshine were too good to last. On a grey Wednesday morning we boarded our ferry and headed down to the south island for the next phase!
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| En route from Wellington to Picton |
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