Out & About in the Capital

Another week down & I'm managing to fill my days quite nicely still. I've been enjoying exploring the city on foot. My first batch of job applications are in, so now it's just a matter of biding my time.
On Saturday Will & I had a nice relaxed morning, before walking to Lyall Bay in the afternoon. I love watching the planes come in low over the bay. It was a lovely day, apart from the inevitable wind which I think was trying to claim my hat in the pic below!

On Sunday we walked into the city centre. Our first port of call was Shed 11 on the waterfront to view the World Press Photo exhibition which was excellent. We were then planning on attending the opening of the city gallery which was offering free entry for the day. There is a visiting exhibition by a Japanese artist called Yayoi Kusama. She is obsessed with polka dots, & the outside of the gallery was decorated accordingly... There were a couple of bands playing in Civic Square & the place was humming. Unfortunately the queue to get into the gallery was a couple of hours long, so we decided to flag it & come back another day, even if we have to pay! Apparently it is free every second Wednesday, so that is something I might do while I'm still a lady of leisure.
Instead we took the cable car up to the botanical gardens. It was 'Tulip Sunday' with thousands of bulbs in full bloom. It was quite spectacular. The rest of the gardens weren't looking too bad either...

That's about it for the moment. We are loving living in Wellington, there is so much to see & do. We've been busy buying tickets to a few events... We are seeing Greg Johnson & Boh Runga playing the acoustic church tour in October, Dave Dobbyn in November, we have much sought after tickets for Coromandel Gold to see in the new year, plus Homegrown tickets which happens to be on my birthday in February. Tomorrow I'll be doing my best to nab some tickets for the Wellington Sevens on Waitangi weekend (they sold out in 10 minutes last year!), plus Fat Freddy's Drop is playing the Front Room later in the year so we might see if tickets are still available for that.

All-Blacks vs Oz

Saturday night we caught a bus into town for the All-Black's Tri-Nations match against Oz. The bus was packed with people heading to the game. However unlike in the UK where making eye-contact is a big no-no, people seem to actually talk on NZ buses! I had a nice chat to the guy sitting opposite me about Wellington schools... We arrived at the Cake Tin in plenty of time to watch the warm-up & pre-match build-up.

Mum had bought the tickets for us the day they went on sale, & she managed to get us some amazing seats. We were in the second row from the field between the half-way line & the 22 & you could hear every hit! I'll probably never watch an AB's game in such prime position again..

It was a thoroughly enjoyable game & they actually played some decent rugby, which made a nice change! Poor old Oz got a hiding with the final score being 33-6.
We stayed around at the end to watch the presentation of the Bledisloe cup & watch the players do a lap of honour with the cup, thanking the supporters. When we made it back to the bus station there was a bus there waiting for us, & we were home in 15 minutes. It was all very easy.

One week in Wellington

We enjoyed our last few days in Hamilton. Most of Wednesday was spent catching up with a few people, and then on Thursday we went out to Raglan for the day. We had a lovely time wandering around the cool little arty shops, then had a fish & chip lunch on the waterfront, washed down with L&P. It was a nice day, but hardly tropical, so we couldn't believe that kids were jumping off the bridge at this time of the year. As Will said, they breed them tough in NZ!

We then drove out to the surf beaches, although the surf was pretty non-existent. Pretty though...

On Thursday we drove down to Wellington. It was a bit grey & overcast compared to the previous few days, so we didn't get the nice views of the mountains on the way down that I hoped to. We had lunch in Taupo, then stopped in Bulls for ice cream & to stretch the legs. We arrived in Wellington at about 6pm & easily found our way to our accommodation. We are house-sitting a place in Newtown for around 3 months. It's a nice 3-bed 1920's era villa in a very convenient location. It is on a direct bus line to the University which is great for Will as it means he doesn't have to go via the city centre. The hospital is in Newtown so it is brilliant for public transport links. Below is the view from the front & back of our place. It's lovely at night with all the lights shining. We chilled out on the Saturday & had a wander around the Newtown High St. It's only about a 10 minute walk down the hill, however takes about 15 minutes to get home up the hill! Our place doesn't have Sky so we wandered down to the local sports bar to watch the All-Blacks game in the evening. On Sunday we started the house-hunting process. We looked through 6 open homes & it was really useful to give us an idea of the different suburbs, & what we can get for our money. We don't actually want to find our dream house JUST yet, as Will is still in the process of selling his house in the UK.

Will started his job at Victoria Uni on Monday & said that it is going well & everyone is really friendly. Whereas I am quite enjoying being a lady of leisure! In saying that, teaching jobs for next year are starting to be advertised, so I spent the early part of this week updating my CV & putting together a couple of applications. I've also been getting out & doing a bit of exploring on foot each day.

Today I did bit of a mammoth effort... I walked into the city centre via the waterfront which took about an hour and a half. It was a gorgeous day though, with lots of people out walking & jogging along the waterfront, or throwing rugby balls around on the beach.

This is a sign you probably won't see in many other capital cities around the world!

Once I was in the city centre I had bit of a wander around. I found a Warehouse so bought the box-set of season 3 of 24. We had watched season 1 & 2 on box-set in the UK, & the TV in this place only has rabbit ears, & only seems to pick up channels one, two and four, so this will give us something to watch in the evenings! Season 4 was also cheap, so I got it as well... I then started walking with the intention of catching a bus home, however I hit the Basin Reserve & realised I really wasn't that far away, so decided to walk all the way. It only took about 30 minutes to get home which is pretty impressive.

On Saturday Will & I will probably bus into the city centre & do a bit of exploring together. Saturday night we are off to the Cake-Tin to watch the All-Blacks take on Oz. Lets hope they play like they did in the last 20 minutes against the Boks, & not the first 60... Sunday promises to be another busy day of open-home viewing.

All-Blacks training session

The highlight of today was attending a free public All-Black training session at Waikato Stadium before their crucial test match against the Springboks on Saturday. They trained for about an hour, & then signed some autographs. Being ever so slightly obsessed with Dan Carter, I did get his autograph, as well as loads & loads of piccies of him... However I don't think there will be many complaints, especially from the females! He was looking very sharp at training & slotting all his kicks over, so fingers crossed for Saturday...

It wasn't just the Dan show, I did tear my eyes away from him on occasion to take a few pics of others in the team...

After the training session finished we met dad for lunch at the Workingman's club. Mum & dad really have been spoiling us since we've been back, feeding & watering us very well indeed. After lunch we popped into town to do a few bits & pieces, including adding Will to my bank accounts so he has some way to access money in this country, & somewhere for his wages to go once he starts working next week.

Tomorrow I'm planning on catching up with a few friends, then Wednesday we are hopefully going to drive to Raglan for the day. The weather here has been incredible. Cold in the mornings & evenings, but gorgeous sunshine during the day. It's only spring here, & it's already warmer than the British 'summer' that we left behind. On Thursday we drive down to Wellington to start our new lives...

Back in NZ

We arrived home early on Friday morning after an excellent flight with Air New Zealand, via LA. Dad was waiting to meet us at the airport, & on the way home we called into mum's work so we could say hello. One of the first things we did was to take our new wheels for a test drive. Dad had found us a very nice 5-door Toyota Corolla Hatchback, so we drove out to Leamington to pay my nana a visit. It was a glorious day so we stopped by the Hamilton Gardens on the way home to stretch our legs.


We paid homage to the English Flower Garden where Will proposed. One of the doves which was obligingly present at the proposal popped its head out of its Cote to say hello.

Saturday started with a family outing to Frankton Market for a wander, followed by a few shops in town. That night Dad took us to the Hawke's Bay v Waikato rugby game. He has a season ticket & has his own seat, but he had managed to get us tickets for the two seats next to him. It was an exciting match with Waikato scoring 3 tries within the first 20 odd minutes, weathering a Hawke's Bay comeback, & just manging to hold on to win 30-22. Will enjoyed the cheerleaders in the pre-match build-up, but he did find all the kids in their mooloo masks a bit disturbing...