Day 17 - Friday
Leaving Taupo was hard - especially for the girls. It takes over 24 hours to get to New Zealand from the UK (if you include the hanging around at airports as well as the flights themselves) and unless you have the money to fly business or first class, it’s pretty unpleasant. So saying goodbye without a firm idea of when you will see each other again, isn’t easy.
After dropping Jamie at Kindie, which took a little longer than usual as he clearly was not a happy bunny and clung like a limpet to Hellie, we went into town to a nice little cafe for a farewell coffee and some breakfast.
We chatted about some of the wonderful things we had done, discussed the “poo in the pants” roads we were about to encounter driving out of Taupo and promised to “face time” later so we could say hello and goodbye to Jamie.
There were lot’s of hugs, a few tears and it was back into Bertha for the next stage of our journey.
Lottie warned me that she probably wouldn’t be her usual sunny self during our drive down to Wellington and she did have a few tears along the way, but the nature of the highway we had now joined, immediately took her mind off her sadness, as it required a steady nerve and total concentration.
New Zealand seems to be made up, almost entirely, of hills and mountains of varying magnitude, interspersed with lakes and rivers. You can just imagine the scenes at road planning meetings……….
“Right so we need to build a road between Town A and Town B”
“Well that shouldn’t be too difficult, they are only 200km apart”
“Have you actually LOOKED at the map”
“Well no”
“There are mountains, a national park and a dirty great lake in the way”
“OK, so can we build a bridge across the lake?”
“It’s 200 m deep!!!!!!“
“A swing bridge then - we’ve done a few of them before”
“ Yes we have. Across rivers. This lake is 50 km wide”
“ Ah - so no bridge then”.
All stare at map.
“So we’ll have to go round it”
“Looks that way”
“But that doubles the driving distance and the budget”
“I know, but if we want that road……….
Draws a line around the edge of the lake.
“That doesn’t look too bad”
“Urrm - that isn’t going to work”
“Why not?”
“ Because, there are mountains, here (pokes finger at map), here, here, here, here and here. And here.
“There’s another one here”
“Oh shit”
Voice from the back of the room “ I’ve found 9 more”
All - “shut up!”
“Well - we’ll have to take the road around them”
“We can’t, because these 5 go into the lake and the rest all sort of run into each other”.
Stoney silence.
“Please don’t tell me we are going to have to do that zig zagging up and down shit over 17 mountains.
“It certainly looks that way”
“But that’s going to add another 300 km to the road”
“The cost is going to be huge”
“And we’re going to have to build barriers - to stop cars plummeting off the edge and they’re really really expensive”
Another long silence….
“Nah - lets not bother with the barriers”.
So, the road out of Taupo, went alongside the lake, got higher and higher, while the bends got tighter and tighter. Sometimes there were barriers and sometime there was nothing except a little White wooden post and the mammoth drop.
Lottie and I have spent many happy hours trying work out the New Zealand system for barrier placement, working on the assumption that there must be some sort of logic.
Our conclusion - there is no system - or logic. They seem to be placed entirely at random, which just adds to the excitement and anticipation - or sheer horror - depending on your view.
The only saving grace is that there are so many “poo in the pants” roads that in the end you get a bit blazé.
“Oh look Lottie - another sheer drop of several hundred meters” - isn’t the view lovely”.
“How on earth do you know mother - you have your eyes closed”.
With our change in itinerary, this drive was going to be our longest at just over 5 hours, but the time seemed to pass quite quickly.
Some music in the car would have been nice but sadly Bertha had failed dismally, as a sound system. We had tried listening to the radio and given that up as a bad job within minutes, because:-
We couldn’t get a nice clear signal on any station and full blast static doesn’t make for easy listening.
From the snippets we did pick up, the choice of music left an awful lot to be desired.
In Taupo, we had found a great music shop, selling all sorts of CDs. After much discussion and deliberation we had settled on “Great songs for a road trip” or some such title. We had eagerly inserted disc 1 into Bertha’s CD player, but her response was to spit out a CD of Glee songs and hang on to ours. No pressing of buttons, sticking pointy objects in the slot, turning it off and on again yielded anything except a nasty grating sound. She still has our CD and is showing no signs of ever giving it up.
I filled my time, looking at my map book and giving Lottie a running commentary about what was either side of us and up ahead.
If she was bored out of her brain with me prattling on, she never gave any sign.
As well as the usual high, winding, scary roads, we also had to cross what everyone calls “the desert road”, on our way to Wellington.
We were fascinated to know what the New Zealand definition of a desert was, because so far, all the scenery had been a million shades of Green. Well it turns out that, this desert was just a bit flatter and Browner than everywhere else, but it was still pretty impressive.
As we got close to Wellington, we knew we were arriving at a big city because there were more than 2 cars on the road ( and I had my map) - but in all honesty, for a capital city, it’s not really that big.
It’s all centred around a bay and being quite hilly, a large number of the houses have great views over the water. It feels quite compact and is really rather lovely.
I chose the Rydges Hotel, because it is within walking distance of all the shops, restaurants, bars and points of interest, but is also only a couple of minutes drive from the Ferry Port (perfect for our crossing to the South Island).
It also had parking (which was quite hard to find in central Wellington Hotels), so we drew up outside, looked for a helpful “parking this way”, sign and when we couldn’t see one, parked in the taxi rank. Lottie stayed in the car (to fend off angry taxi drivers) while I ran inside to ask where we could leave Bertha.
The delightful young man on reception, said they offered valet parking at $30 a day and I have to say, It was worth every penny to not have to carry all our stuff (2 huge suitcases, 2 big backpacks, our cool bag, our handbags, coats, spare shoes and the plastic bag containing our tea, biscuits, crisps, twiglets, cornflakes etc,) - from the car to our hotel.
As I went out to the car to let Lottie know, another young uniformed man appeared with one of those rather elaborate, Gold, trolley things they have in hotels all over the world. Why are they always exactly the same colour and shape? Can there really be only one company on earth that makes them?
Anyway, I was rather embarrassed about the amount of luggage we had for just 2 people, especially as we were only staying 2 nights, so found myself apologising (what is it with us Brits - no other nationality can possibly say sorry as much as we do) - but the charming young man assured us he’d seen a lot more luggage with a lot less people (one person then?) and it was no bother.
We handed him Bertha’s keys and went inside to check in properly.
Despite my fear of heights I usually like to stay on the top floors of hotels because the view is better - and this hotel was about 15 stories high. However I’ve never stayed in a hotel that has been hit by an earthquake within the last 5 days before.
Our room was on the 10th floor which, under the circumstances wasn't too bad. High enough to see some of the city, but low enough to run down the stairs if the building started to shake.
I had signed up for their weekend special deal - offering breakfast and a harbour view room for just a little more than their normal rate, so was full of anticipation as we went up in the lift.
However, when we opened the door, the “view” was a big disappointment.
There was a floor to ceiling, wall to wall window, but more than two thirds of it looked out onto the back of an extremely ugly office block. You could see the harbour through rest of it, along with cranes and containers and building works. So given how pretty most of Wellington is, I felt a bit cheated that we got to look at an ugly bit.
Having said that, the room itself was very nice, the 2 Queen sized beds were super comfy and as far as we could tell, given the position of the hotel, none of the other rooms would offer a better view.
As you’ve probably gathered by now - we’re not ones to make a fuss, and prefer to just get on with having a lovely time.
Within 30 seconds of our arrival, the room looked like a tornado had gone through - it’s not easy living out of a suitcase and staying tidy. We had planned to change and smarten ourselves up for our first dinner in the capital city, but as was becoming a rather unfortunate pattern, we couldn’t be bothered, so went out as we were.
In jeans, tee shirts, hoodies and rain jackets, with no make up and scruffy well travelled hair - we fitted right in. If there is a dress code in New Zealand, we haven’t found out what it is yet.
We walked along the rather trendy wharf area, full of bright young things enjoying drinks outside, pretending not to be cold. It was hard to believe that just 4 nights ago, Wellington was rocked by the aftershocks from the major earthquake further South and then suffered Gale force winds and flooding.
We consulted the internet for some ideas on where to eat and were a little spoiled for choice.
All the restaurants have their menus displayed in smart little cabinets outside, so we were able to check out the non meat options at each one.
We settled on Shed 5, which ranked quite highly on Trip Advisor, had very good comments and had some yummy fish & veggie options.
Despite the name, Shed 5 is really rather smart and we instantly regretted our decision to go out in our scruffs. We needn’t have worried because despite the beautiful decor, tableware and staff, most of the customers looked worse than we did.
Our waiter Ross was rather gorgeous, super friendly and very very very good at his job. He suggested a delicious sounding pre- appetiser, that we could munch on while we were choosing our other dishes. We didn’t know we wanted this, but his description convinced us that our meal wouldn’t be complete without it.
We had already had a glass of wine each, while we were waiting for our table. Ross asked what we thought of that wine and would we like him to bring us a whole bottle. Why not!
He then explained the starters and the specials so well, he even made things I know I don’t like very much sound delicious.
So we threw caution to the wind, didn’t pay an awful lot of attention to the price of anything and had a truly exceptional meal.
Ross managed the tricky balance between, being really attentive, without being too intrusive, absolutely brilliantly and was very entertaining as well.
After our pre appetiser, starters and mains, there was absolutely no room for a pudding, despite Ross’s best efforts, so we settled for a coffee each and asked for the bill.
I have to say, the bill did make my eyes water a bit, but these things are all relative. This was a beautiful restaurant in a Capital city, serving excellent food and wine, with amazing customer service and we had had a fabulous evening - so worth every penny.
We stopped at one of the trendy bars for a couple of cocktails on our way back, but were so tired after our long drive and our gorgeous meal, we guzzled them down and headed back to our hotel.
If you have been following the other posts in this blog, you will be aware that I am a smoker (although due to the outrageous cost of cigarettes here - I’ve cut down quite a lot).
So far, everywhere we’ve stayed, I’ve been able to simply step outside the door when I need to smoke. That’s a bit tricky when you are on the 10th floor, especially when you’ve forgotten where you are and have already put on your pyjamas.
Clearly there was no way I was going to go down in the lift and walk across the elegant marble foyer, in my P.J.s, so I put my jeans and jacket on over the top and popped downstairs for my last cigarette of the night. The problem is (as all smokers will testify) the minute you decide that will be your last one - you want another one.
“Just one more” you say as the jeans and jacket go on again.
You give the guy on reception a little smile and shrug, waving your cigarette packet in the air, by way of explanation and head outside again.
Back upstairs and settling into bed, your lovely daughter offers to make you a cup of tea. One sip and………..
Down I went again.