Hamilton to Wellington

July 13, 2009

We woke up at 6:30 am today and got out of the motel in record time. I think it might have helped that we were so cold. Our goal was to get to Masterton by 3:40 pm when the train would leave for Wellington and we were determined to try. We left Hamilton by 7 am and were well on our way. I looked at the ETA on the GPS and it calculated that we would miss the train but I held out hope that we could somehow pull this off.

We drove until we arrived in the city of Taupo, which has a huge lake called … Lake Taupo, imagine that. We used the guidebook to find us a café to have breakfast and the guidebook did not disappoint. We didn’t linger too long over breakfast, however, before heading back out on the road. We stopped for gas along the way but really did not stop otherwise, so there really isn’t much to say about the majority of the day.

We got into Masterton not only on time, but over an hour early. We had time for me to pack up my stuff into all of my suitcases (most of them had sat in the car most of this trip as they’re full of cold winter gear etc.) and I remember most stuff except for my hiking boots (grumble, snarl). I will likely be seeing Raven tomorrow though so I’ll just have her bring the boots when she meets us. We then went into downtown Masterton to have a late lunch, since we’d gone straight through before and didn’t eat lunch at a yummy café next to the local movie theater. We then went back to the train, I bought a ticket, loaded my luggage and hopped on board.

The train ride was pleasant. I ended up at a four person table thing because the two person seats were facing the wrong way. Even so, no one sat next to me so I had time to relax and enjoy the scenery. I listened to these two four year olds having a conversation with their Kiwi accents about how many ‘granddads’ they had, which was really cute. I also wrote in my travel journal and listened to my ipod and it was nice to be able to chill for a while.

I arrived in Wellington around 5:45 pm and went out to wait for G. It was kind of stupid of me as it’s almost freezing here and I knew she wouldn’t be there until 6:15 or so but I sat and people watched all the same. She arrived and we dumped my luggage into her car. I don’t know when the last time I saw her would be but it’s been a while. It was really nice catching up. We stopped off at the grocery store to buy stuff for dinner and went back to her apartment where I met her roommates and we made dinner. Most exciting (ha ha) was the fact that I got to do laundry, a serious need as I was at the tail end of my clean clothes.

I will be hanging out in Wellington until the 17th when Raven will likely join up with me again as we head for adventures on the South Island (definitely more ‘amazing’ tree pictures, just to warn you). We’re planning on seeing Harry Potter tomorrow when it’s released here in NZ. I want to go to the Te Papa Museum and just explore Wellington for the next few days. Such a different change of pace from the last two weeks!