Picton to Wellington

Our time on the south island was now up and we were all set for the three hour crossing to the north island and our two and a half weeks there.

An uneventful crossing and we were in Wellington, captial of New Zealand (hands up who though it was Auckland?!). Our first major city for a while it took us a some time to get used to the number of people and the traffic...The Beast certainly is not designed for city driving!

Heading back into the city after a night spent camping on the outskirts we had one full day to explore and discover. After wandering the city streets, window shopping and browsing the stores we came across a particular kind of Chinese tea take away store that we'd discovered in Australia and Kate had fallen in love with. Essentially it's iced milk tea in a variety of different flavours served with tapioca balls in the bottom of the cup. I guess you either love or hate it, Kate's fallen in love with the stuff and upon arriving in a major town we're always on the look out for the local China town so she can get her fix!

We'd read that the Wellington museum, Te Apo, was one of the best in the country and so ended up spending a good few hours learning a little about the Maori culture, history and heritage as well as the background to some of the early European settlers.

Brains and tummys full it was time to set off to start exploring the rest of New Zealand.