New Zealand – Day 17 & 18 – Friday & Saturday, March 10 & 11th, 2017

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Friday +26, no winds, great day

Saturday +17, windy, very wet

Today was a very short drive from Martinborough to Wellington through the Rimutaka pass arriving at the Park Hotel in Wellington, sounds easy, doesn’t it? Not so fast and fasten your seat belts.

Remember the windy (winding) roads I said that I would not mention again? Well, we drove the granddad (not me) of them all Friday. Does it go up, down, left, right slow, fast, narrow, wide its the Rimutaka pass. Add trucks (big ones), impatient New Zealanders with noisy green trucks, and worst of all tourists, in cars, in buses, in Jucy camper vans that took over the roads. We survived that drive like all else because we had Lady Garmin with us leading the way with spot-on directions that at the time were right then altogether really wrong. Sometimes we were to take a turn that amounted to a tight turn in the road, other times it was silence not too sure what that was about.

We left Martinborough early to make sure that we would get a parking spot at our hotel. Limited parking and on a first-come basis. If we didn’t secure a parking spot at the hotel, we weren’t sure what our options would be.

Success! After circling the area with the help of Lady Garmin, we arrived at the hotel and were able to get a parking spot. Very happy to park the rental until Sunday morning.

As Friday’s weather was good and Saturday’s forecast was poor, we decided to hike the Mt. Victoria lookout first and save the museum for Saturday. 

Wellington is a compact city and very walkable. We started off on Cuba Street. We were there early on Friday and not that lively but apparently comes to life on Friday and Saturday evenings. We will take their word for that as we had no desire to come and confirm that.

The next stop was the Mt. Victoria lookout. A bit of a steep climb but quite doable, although most seemed to either drive, take a bus or a taxi. We thought the walk was challenging but encountered a man walking it while reading a book. But some views of Wellington were discovered while we hiked back down and through Oriental Parade. Amazing how this city has resemblances to San Francisco. The views from Mt. Victoria were spectacular, all areas of Wellington were in view.

We made our way back to our hotel and stopped for supper at the Crab Shack on the Wharf.

The weather forecast for Saturday was accurate and we awoke to rain.  We walked to the museum along with all the other tourists that were in Wellington, very busy. The museum was amazing.

After the museum, we walked along the wharf back to our hotel.