From Grads to Nomads

The last few days have been quite busy for us! Our last day in Raglan we had intended to golf, but several storms decided to blow in , producing the worst winds that the hostel owners had ever seen in Raglan!! We seem to be lucky enough to keep seeing "the worst storm ever" everywhere we go. We spent the day hibernating in the hostel instead, and hit the road yesterday for an 8 hour drive to Wellington through scenery that looked just like driving through parts of BC and Alberta. Remarkable how similar the two countries topography is. We arrived in Wellington to discover that only Jason and Chris had a hostel room, the rest of us were out of luck, as our reservations apparantly did not go through. As every hostel in town seemed to be booked, I got fed up and I called the Intercontinental and booked the 4 of us in for a night. We thoroughly enjoyed the luxury of a hotel, immediately heading for the pool and hot tub, and I was able to relax in a eucalpytus scented sauna....pure heaven. We then wandered around looking for dinner at 9pm.....again in true New Zealand style it is difficult to find an open restaurant at 9pm so we finally got Hell's pizza and brought it back to the room.
Today has been spent wandering around 2 museums, first the history of Wellington....somewhat interesting but really New Zealand does not have the most fascinating history in comparision to the US or Britain. Then....we went to the Te Papa museum, a huge one which is similiar to a Smithsonian in size, and wandered around, learning about earthquakes and volcanos and the history of migration to New Zealand. We now have the evening until our 2am ferry to the south island! I am enjoying Wellington, I find it to be much more enjoyable than Auckland, and there is more to see and do here.
The pictures are from the dolphin tour in Paihia, New Years Eve, the beach at Raglan, and Rob and I at the pier in Wellington.