November 23 - New Zealand: Napier to Wellington (North Island)

Sunrise Over the Ocean

We woke up dark and early to see the sun rise.  It was pretty cold outside our tent, but this was nothing compared to what it was like on the beach.  We walked up the hill and onto the beach and immediately started shivering because of the wind.  We stood there for about 20 minutes and waited and waited and waited, but the sun seemed a bit groggy this morning.  After a while, we looked at each, teeth chattering from the wind, and said, "OK.  We've seen enough.  Let's crawl back into our sleeping bags."  So we did.

We snuggled back into our warm sleeping bags and went back to sleep.  At 7:00, Jon got up and went for a run along the ocean and I continued to snooze.  About the same time he returned, it started to rain and I began scrambling to pack up the sleeping bags and stuff inside the tent.

Jon finally logs his runs in NZ! (written on 4 Dec.) - Run #19

Today's run was great.  The entire run was never more than 100 meters or so from the shoreline.  I ran along a residential road that ran parallel to the beach, between it and Beach Road.  Why is it that every town has a Beach Road?  Is it a severe lack of creativity in these people that have such a great life living so close to the ocean?  Anyway, I ran along the road until it ended and crossed a little chain into some parkland.  Apparently the parkland was part of a civil defense post during WWII -- there was an old bunker that overlooked the shoreline with a clear line of site up and down a large portion of the local coastline.  I, of course, decided that I would take a little break from the run to check this out, I mean what guy wouldn't?  It was small, with two entrances from the sides and small holes in the front which I assume were for machine guns.  Pretty cool.  

After the battery I continued along on my run and eventually turned around to head back.  As I did, I noticed the dark clouds rolling in from the west.  Having learned that weather in NZ comes from the west I knew I needed to get back before it started raining.  I only sort of made it; it was sprinkling by the time I got to the tent.  Looks like we'll have to take the tent down in the rain.

Disassembled tent in the rain, again!

We scurried around trying to get the tent packed up before it got terribly soaked.  It had the rain cover, but that's the first thing we have to pack away.  So the tent was exposed for a few minutes and we scrambled to get it packed up.  5 minutes and two soaked Connals later, everything was put away.  But we were wet and cold, and Jon especially since he was wet from running.  We drove the car to the main building, where Jon took a warm shower and I began to make breakfast - vegetable omelets.  

Yesterday we bought English Muffins which we were quite excited about.  But when we went to toast them we realized that this camp site didn't have a toaster - very unusual.  So Jon decided to toast them directly on a burner instead.  This worked out well, but the muffins were still raw on the inside and burnt on the outside.  Of course, we ate them anyway!

More New Zealand Wineries

We began the drive out to Wellington but passed a few wineries along the way.  Here are our own "tasting notes":

Ngatarawa Winery

Drive to Wellington

The rain never let up for the rest of the day, and actually got worse the closer we got to Wellington.  It was horrible and we didn't look forward to setting up our tent in the pouring rain.  Jon read in the newspaper that New Zealand has had more rain this week than they average for the entire month of November.  123cm so far as of 11/22.  The average is 88cm.  We are so lucky.  In addition, we made reservations on The Lynx Ferry to Picton (South Island) for early tomorrow morning and had to check in at 7:00AM.  This means that we would have to get up around 5:30.  So we decided to "splurge" and stay in a campsite cabin instead of our tent.

The only problem was that we couldn't find the "Top 10 Lower Hutt Campsite".  It was supposed to be just North of Wellington but we couldn't find the exit.  So we ended up going into Wellington and following the signs to The Lynx Ferry just for our own information.  And because we figured there would be a phone there.  Since we were there, we decided to see if we could get on the evening ferry instead.  This was a bit more trouble than we anticipated.  The only office open at the ferry was the Harbour Police.  So Jon went in to (1) Ask directions to the campsite, and (2) Ask if they knew anything about the ferry.  Jon said that the officer was just "as nice as can be" and gave him great directions to the campsite.  The officer also told Jon that he would need to go to the train station across the street to contact the ferry office.  It seems that customer service isn't something The Lynx excels at.

So I double-parked outside the railroad station while Jon went in to see what he could do.  When he came back, he said that they wouldn't put us on tonight's ferry unless we paid the fare difference, which we weren't willing to do.  So he called the campsite and made sure there was a cabin available for us, which there was.  So he reserved it and we were on our way.

Top Ten Lower Hutt Campsite (www.huttpark.co.nz)

The "Top Ten" campsites are a chain, but they're also very nice and uphold a definite standard.  The kitchens are great and the bathrooms are always clean with lots of hot water.  We were in cabin #56 and considering that the weather was in a downpour when we got there, we were very happy not to have to sleep in a tent.  So we unpacked our stuff as quickly as possible and turned on the heat in the room.  It was SO COLD!!  The room was nothing more than four walls with some bunk beds in it, but it had a door and it was unlikely to leak.  The cabin block is right across the lot from the kitchen and bathrooms.  So aside from having to hop over the growing puddles in the lot, the amenities were quite convenient!

We took our stuff to the kitchen and began to make dinner - veggies and pasta in tomato sauce.  There was a couple from Holland in the kitchen and we had fun talking to them.  They had been in Australia and were planning to return after New Zealand.  They gave us some great pointers about buying a car in Australia, if that's what we end up doing when we're there.  

After dinner, we showered and went back to our (warm) room to lay around and read.  It was nice to be able to have room to move around and to read without flashlights.   And, of course, it was even nicer to have guaranteed dryness.

Our Thanksgiving Blunder

I have to say this because we realized a huge blunder today as we drove to Wellington.  We managed to get a news station the AM radio and were listening to the financial news.  The announcer said something about "the US markets being closed last night".  Jon and I looked at each other.  Closed?  Why in the world would the US markets be closed last night?  A Thursday night?  Wait a minute..... a Thursday!!  OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!  But Thanksgiving is NEXT week, right?  Is it possible that we were a week off?  We were SURE it was next week!  We were PLANNING on celebrating it next week.  As it turns out, we were wrong.  We completely missed Thanksgiving.  Morons.  

So we tried to think - what did we do for our Thanksgiving dinner?  Well, we had steak and potatoes and vegetables and wine.  And we ate at a picnic table overlooking the ocean.  We even had a tablecloth! (well, one of my skirts laid out over the table)  But it was still a suitable Thanksgiving Dinner even if we didn't realize what day it was.

So Happy Belated Thanksgiving to everyone.  We hope you had a wonderful holiday and spent it with beloved friends and family.  We definitely miss ours!