NZ- week 4/5

After Napier we went further south towards Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. The city only has about 200000 inhabitants and one can do anything on foot in the City centre. After walking around downtown and watching the Christmas parade (really weird with these temperatures) we took the cable car (for the Swiss: looks a bit like the Polybahn in Zuerich) uphill to relax in the botanical garden. From up here you have a beautiful view upon Wellington and the bay.
The camping site is actually situated outside Wellington in a nearby town called Lower Hutt. Walking across there we suddenly found ourselves in front of a Dutch shop. Yes, they do sell kruidnoten, speculaas, bitterballen, haring and drop.

Here in Wellington, we met up with Martin, a German guy who emigrated 3 years ago. He showed us around outside Wellington and took us for a ride along the coast line. He also gave us some useful information about finding a job and buying houses. When we saw his house with a view on the sea it certainly made us very jealous ;-)....but it also made us aware that it is possible to "have it all" over here.

At last; our first (unofficial) Dutch visitors: among them my former boss Duco. We met up and went for some coffee. As they wanted to see the Te Papa museum and we had to get to some stores, we decided to meet afterwards for dinner. We found them already sitting on a sunny terrace when we arrived, so we joined them to enjoy the rest of the afternoon with a bottle of nice rose. One bottle turned into three before we had dinner (with a fourth bottle). Funny to see each other on the other side of the world in such an informal surrounding.

We took the ferry from Wellington to Picton, a trip taking about 3 hours. The last hour you pass through a couple of the Sounds (sort of Fjords) where you have stunning views. During the trip, it feels like we were going from north towards south, but actually it is more east to west.

Continued to Blenheim where we (oh yes) did another wine tour! :-)
The Marlborough wine region is the biggest wine producing area in NZ. Here they almost only produce white wine and hardly any red. We discovered some really nice Rieslings. There are many olive trees from which they produce nice olive oil.

After 2 days in Blenheim we drive to Nelson. This little town is the geographical centre of New Zealand. It is also the region with the most sunny hours per year. Since two weeks it is sunny and warm, about 27 degrees. After traveling for 5 weeks in New Zealand is feels like we had already a better summer than in Europe this year...and read this: Summer in NZ hasn't started yet! Jealous???
We stay for about one week and taking it easy. In the town museum is an excellent exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci showing 3-dimensional replicas of his inventions and designs (like the famous helicopter). Another museum called WOW (World of wearable art) is quite weird but in a positive and refreshing way. It is a mixture of clothes (made from all sorts of material one can think of) and old-timer cars.