Wellington

We went wine tasting around the Hawkes Bay area as planned. We decided it wasn't worth risking bad weather and paid for an afternoon tour which included four wineries and a "gourmet snack". We had a really good time, trying about 30 wines all in all (fairly generous quantities too, so I'm glad we didn't drive it ourselves). Only two other guys in our group - Paul and Paddy, an Aussie and a kiwi - journalists who met while working together in Ireland of all places. There's an area in Hawkes Bay called the Gimblet Gravels due to the dry, gravelly earth. For many years the land was considered worthless and left barren until someone realised it was perfect for growing grapes. Nowadays it is literally covered in vineyards and a single acre changes hands for a small fortune.

Next day we headed down to Wellington. It was the worst day of driving in my life so far, bar none. Really strong, gusty winds and our hi top camper is basically a Toyota Hiace van with a great big plastic roof stuck on top which effectively acts like a sail in strong winds. It was all over the place and it was all I could do to wrestle the thing into a straight line. We did most of the journey at about 70kph, even the lorries were overtaking us! But we arrived unscathed, a little later than planned. We decided it would be best to have a couple of nights in a hostel to get a break form the van and to properly enjoy being in the city. We're staying in a big, old ramshackle hostel called Rowena's Lodge. It's not the nicest in town but is just about the only one with off street parking capable of accommodating a 2.5m high camper, so it'll do. Wellington is really pleasant as capital cities go. It's a tiny place, only the third largest city in the country, but it's size is definitely part of it's appeal. Some parts of it feel like a miniature London (but cleaner and friendlier, obviously). There's loads of bars and restaurants everywhere - the kiwis have a real thing for trying to re-create Irish and English pubs. They do get somewhere close with the design/atmosphere but are sorely lacking on the beer front. In the Irish places you can get an average pint of Guinness or Murphy's, but the "Speckled Hen" I foolishly paid a fortune for yesterday was terrible (cold, fizzy, need I go on....). We went on the cable car today and walked through the botanical gardens before checking out the museum, which was pretty good, especially the earthquake simulator.

Tomorrow morning we're heading to the South Island on the ferry. It's about a 3 hour ride across the Cooke Straight and is sometimes quite choppy this time of year (in fact it was closed only a week or so ago so it could be an interesting ride). We're really looking forward to seeing the South Island - everyone, both travellers and kiwis, seem to think it's a stunning place. We've chosen to spend two thirds of our time in NZ down south, and hopefully it will prove to be the right decision.