Windy Wellington

The first stage of our journey North was to Picton, which was not an unfamiliar route for us and was pretty uneventful. Though having said that, loading the car was a bit of a drama! Ken & Sylvia had their month's supply of clothes etc. plus numerous souvenirs & gifts purchased and we couldn't do our usual 'just chuck it in the back of the car' trick because we would be flying back down from Auckland. Convinced I needed heaps of room I packed the largest suitcase and then it wouldn't fit in the car so I had no choice but to cram it all in a smaller container. I should of been pleased at my skilful repacking, however it does mean that in the future there will be no excuse for taking oodles of stuff with us, as I'm sure Neil will remind me! The hire car did do very well considering the weight it had to carry and it took very skilful manouvering on and off driveways so that the bottom of the car didn't get left behind!
Right, so on to Picton. Just remembered another drama; an emergency dentist's appointment in Kaikoura for Neil who had an infection of his wisdom teeth. We tried dentists in Rangiora before we left and they all laughed when we said we needed an appointment that morning, so we kept trying places on our way up the country. The Greek dentist in Kaikoura took pity on us when we gave a sob story about going on holiday etc and he agreed to see Neil even though it was his day off.
Only other remotely interesting point was the number of seals & sea lions we saw as we drove up the coast; normally seal colonies are deserted whenever we visit so we'd given up, but we could see dozens just from the side of the road - lots of babies too.
Right, Picton. Stayed there over night and then, after an hour or so delay the next morning, we were on our to Wellington. The 'ferry' was fine but not the 'cruise' that it advertises itself as! The weather was beautiful and the views through the Marlborough Sounds were stunning - it was bizarre to see little batches/holiday homes that clearly only were accessible by boat.
By the time we reached Wellington the wind had picked up and the whole time we were there we were reminded of why it's the 'windy city' - permanent bad hair days. It felt like we should have been in a different country, though I can't really put my finger on why. It was much busier than anywhere we've been in the South and we liked that! The highlight for me was definitely the Te Papa museum with a wide range of interactive exhibits on all kinds of topics which tell the stories of the different cultures in NZ. I discovered how precariously placed on fault lines the country is and the potential for natural disasters is much greater than I knew - though there were tips on how to earthquake proof your home so that was reassuring!
We stayed over night in Wellington and just really enjoyed the buzz of the big city. And the fact there were lots of different people around - far more multi-cultural than Christchurch. We also caught the cable car to the botanical gardens and though the view of the lights across the city was cool I think there is lots more to see in the daylight! The following morning we caught the circular bus tour around the city's 'top spots'! We stopped at the cathedral and parliament, known as the beehive, and happened to be there at the right time for a tour. It certainly helped us understand the whole MMP thing.
We then set off on a mammoth 5 hour drive to New Plymouth on the far west coast. The trip was uneventful but we got a good impression of how much more densely populated the North island is compared to the South; when you reach a settlement of the same size writing on the map as one on the South island, there's actually something there, quite alot there actually! As the sun was setting we caught amazing views of the volcanic Mount Taranaki but it was dark by the time we reached New Plymouth.
I was quite nervous the following morning as we headed for the library in search of information about great, great, great, great, great grandfather's land purchases back in the 1840's. Sylvia had a photocopy of the land deed and was hoping for more information but we really hoped the archives would have something so it wasn't a wasted trip. Much to our amazement, they typed in 'Paul Fletcher' and there he was! When Neil and I came to find her, Sylvia was reading the original land deeds over 160 years old! There was also a map of the plots of land as they had been divided up at that time but apparantly, Mr. Fletcher would have had to come to NZ to actually claim which plots he wanted so we couldn't go and stand and claim the ground now. Though the deeds do say things like 'for his decendents & ancestors from here on & forever' (words to that effect!)...We're still none the wiser as to why he never came to claim the land he purchased but Sylvia's off to dig further into family history back in England.