Thursday.
I really have to keep reminding myself what day it is. Even though the time difference is only two hours from Melbourne, it's difficult to get my head around, especially with the emphasis that I'm all that much farther from home.
It was a lovely morning, although I wasted it a little by having a lie in. At around seven AM, I was awoken by two children having a screaming or crying match. I couldn't make out which but either one was just as annoying as the other. The walls are quite thin here and so you can hear everything quite clearly once it gets to a certain level. I put the pillow over my head and drifted back until around ten thirty.
When I got up, the sun was still shining brightly, so I grabbed a quick shower and made myself look marginally pretty and slung on my 'traveller' clothes, which consist of shorts, a khaki vest, rucksack and my walking boots. I asked the owner lady Helen who was at reception about the trains, their cost and whether or not you could pay for your ticket on the train or whether you had to buy it at the station from a machine like on the trams in Melbourne. I put my headphones off and started on my walk toward the station.
The station was very much like one of the stations you'd find in the countryside back home, consisting of one platform with trains going each way on either side. There was a little shop right at the end, but I was more concerned about which side I had stand on as I didn't want to end up on a train to the middle of nowhere. I asked a lady who was standing and she gave me a big smile and told me I was on the right side. She then went on to ask about where I was from and what I was doing and where I was staying and she boarded the train with me and showed me which side I needed to sit on to see the coastline. She joined me and told me all about the area and how it would be nice one day if the weather was fine to just ride the trains about. She helped me purchase the right ticket from the conductor as he had a very quiet thick Chinese accent which confused me greatly. She showed me a map and offered to come into the city to show me around, but I told her that I couldn't put her out like that, especially as she'd just got back from a 71km hike the day before. We talked so much that she missed her stop. When the train arrived at the next station, we said our farewells and I sat back pressed against the window once more with my camera in hand.
I arrived in Wellington city around forty five minutes later and got off the train to follow the crowds, as they seemed to know where they were going and I was just lost. I saw a sign towards parliament, so I followed those and found the New Zealand parliament buildings, which were quite striking, especially one part that was completely round with lots and lots of windows all around. There was a lot of green grass and shady trees on the site where everyone had gathered to eat their lunch and sit and talk on their mobile phones. I took some pictures, but there wasn't much to see due to the plentiful 'authorized persons only beyond this point' signs, so I carried on down a street in the direction that I thought was the city centre. I'm getting good at walking in the right direction and just finding what I'm looking for.
The city centre once I hit it, reminded me ever so much of any other city, especially an Australian one. The tall buildings made the streets seems quite claustrophobic to walk down, and there was a lot of shade from the buildings themselves and the awnings that they had coming off of them. One thing I did notice that there were a lot of book shops, both second hand book shops and one's belonging to chain stores. There were a lot of clothing stores which all seemed to have generic clothes in the windows that you might find from New Look or Top Man, this, together with numerous surf and skate shops. Nothing really look my fancy, and I was really after a new necklace seeing as my shark tooth one from Melbourne kept digging into my neck whilst I was trying to sleep. I walked up and down the streets just looking through the shop windows and stopped at an American style food court to get some food. Another thing I noticed in the food court is that everything is priced a little under what it would be in Melbourne, which is especially great considering you get a little more NZ dollar than you would Australian for your pound.
It took me around twenty five minutes to get down the hill through the gardens and I passed through some lovely rose gardens and saw some endangered species and even went through a graveyard. It shocked me how all of the dates on the grave stones were so recent, but I'm guessing that New Zealand is also a relatively new country like Australia so this would be the reason why. Once I got back into the city, I decided to find my original location and then walk a few streets over. I remember one of the girls at reception talking about a place called 'Cuba Street' which was where all the bohemian and alternative shops lay, so I walked around looking for this street, which I found eventually, passing the Wellington State Library and the town hall. I didn't think too much to Cuba street. Maybe Melbourne has really set the bar high for cosmopolitan, multicultural, ethnic shops and restaurants, but the street that was supposed to resemble Camden Town left a lot to be desired. There were some sculptures running down the middle and a lot of surf shops and many restaurants with all different cuisines from around the world, but there certainly wasn't anywhere that I could get my necklace from that I wanted.
After walking the length of the street, I decided to head over to the Victoria Quay (I think it's called. I dislike not having the internet so I can double check these things). I parked up on a rock that had a drop down to the sea. There were cruise ships docked amongst pleasure boats and fishing boats and children in their school clothes going down a ladder to a flat platform at the bottom and from there jumping into the water. There were people in rowing boats going back and forth in the distance and I sat here for a little while enjoying the sunshine on my back before walking the length of the waterfront until I found the museum which my Dad said would be a good place to go. However by this point it was 4:30pm and most museums close at 5pm, so I committed the location to memory so that I could visit another day and headed back through the maze of streets trying to find a souvenir shop that I'd passed earlier in the day but had no idea whatsoever as to where it was located. I was exceptionally chuffed with myself when I found it first go!
After I bought myself a necklace from here made of New Zealand pearls, I decided that I was quite bored of the city. It was coming up to that funny time of the afternoon where it turns to evening and the only thing to really do was travel home or find a bar or restaurant, and I didn't fancy either of the latter options because I had food to cook for dinner and I had wine also. I found Featherstone Street, which earlier I'd clocked as being one of the streets you could exit the station onto, and followed the masses back to the station in full realisation that I was about to join the commuter traffic on the train. When I reached the station, I realised that I needed to get to Plimmerton, but had no idea which train I had to get on as they only had the name of the last stop next to the platform number. I quickly checked my timetable and jumped on the train to something (everywhere has funny native names that you have to say with a weird accent. In my head, everything is Kia Ora).
I managed to board the train just as the doors were closing. I quickly asked a lady if this train went to Plimmerton and she ummed and arred and eventually said 'I think so'. The trains have steps inside which lead from the main walkway down to the doors to exit onto the platform, so I sat down on one of these and hugged my bag close to me. As we began moving, it suddenly hit me that this train was the Kia Ora EXPRESS, which is why the lady wasn't sure as to whether the train was going to Plimmerton. Although my ticket allowed all day travel on any train, I wanted to catch the sunset and didn't like the idea of riding the train for an hour to Kia Ora to have to ride it back into the city to catch a different train that actually went to Plimmerton. From what I gather, stations lie on a sort of, A B C set of lines and you can't get from the C line to the B line without going back to the start and riding on the B line all over. I figured there was little I could do about it and sat there watching out the window trying to see if I recognised any of the stops, but typically, I was sat on the other side of the train, so of course I didn't recognise anything! We flew straight through so many stops that I resided to the fact that I was going to have to ride the train back. But very luckily, it did stop at Plimmerton.
I did the long walk back to Moana Lodge and quickly threw some wine into a Coke bottle I'd acquired in the city, donned by big woolly sheep fleece (I'm so glad I bought it!), and headed out. Right near the lodge, there is a small boating facility with a boating club and lots of private boats stored there. Near the runway that slopes down so you can plunge your boat into the water, there was a little walkway that jutted out the side, so I walked down to the end of that, looking over my shoulder the whole time in case this was private property. I sat there with my camera and my wine for a good hour and a half and watched the sun fall from the top of the sky, all the way down to behind the island that you can see in the distance that is tall with just a few trees on the right hand side. I watched the sky turn from bright haze into soft pale blue into grey into dusk whilst sipping my wine and always watching the tide in case it came in too fast and I got trapped.
When I stood up to come back to the lodge, I realised that due to not having any dinner yet, I was almost drunk. It was also getting quite cold, so I hurried to do the two minute walk (I do love the proximity!), and came back inside to cook my tea. Following this, still tired from the red wine, I put on my jimjams and went to bed, watching an episode of Friends, Peep Show and ending with Father Ted, or Bed Ted, which has become the routine whilst out here. All of these programs I find very comforting, especially in times where I'm feeling lonely. Last night these feelings were frequent, just with the impending birthday and me missing everyone at home and wishing I was there to celebrate with my friends.
The one thing that I did learn yesterday was that I really am glad that I'm staying here at Moana Lodge. Even though the distance is a pain in the bum, I think I'm experiencing a little more of New Zealand than I would have in a hostel in the city. I know that I'm going to miss out on a lot of the touristy things, but ever other destination I go to I'll be right in the middle of the action playing the tourist. At least here, it's a beautiful place to turn twenty five and it offers me so much chance for introspection and relaxation.
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