Plimmerton, NZ

Ok, as I write this entry, I’m cheating a bit, because we’re now in New Plymouth, but we had a 2 nights stay in Plimmerton which is worth blogging all on its own.

We had left Napier on a cool and rainy day to head towards the Wellington area.  This turned out to be a perfect time to be stuck in a car as we would much rather be travelling somewhere in the rain than stuck in our hostel with not much to do.  Even though it was good to get out of town just when the weather got bad, the drive was pretty uneventful.  We had a quick stop in Masterton for some more pies (Dan with the mince & cheese pie, me with the steak & cheese pie), we were going for the el cheapo budget since we’ve noticed a trend that we spend more money during our driving days.  It’s mainly due to the $2.10/L price of gas!  With not much to see or do in Masterton, we moved on.  Since it was a Sunday, every shop in every town that we drove through were closed.

The rain hardly let up the entire day and even as we approached the Moana Lodge in Plimmerton, the skies were still overcast, the wind was howling and it was a chilly 10 degrees – I had to break out my longer lululemon pants and sweater.   The lodge was perfectly situated right along the beachfront and the first night we cooked up some chicken noodle soup and finished off the rest of our bruschetta fixins’.  We mainly spent the evening reading our books in the cozy common area, or at least we tried to.  We had met a lovely elderly lady from the UK who had chatted our ears off.  She went on about how she now lives in Australia, how she was visiting her son and his girlfriend in Plimmerton, who took a 3 month IT consultant contract while on his RTW trip – and that was now 6 years ago, how there was an earthquake 2 days prior to our arrival, etc.  I enjoyed listening to her stories and we did manage to get two snippets of gold information from her – a)  The Metro ran right through Plimmerton and it was a 30 min. ride into Wellington and b)  That we should take the cable car up and visit the Botanic Gardens once we get there.

We also met our roommates for the evening, a young couple from the UK, Robin and Leslie, who were planning on going down to the south island and then moving on to Asia – they’ve been travelling since January.

The second day in Plimmerton didn’t seem to be any warmer, so we bundled up and took the short walk to the Metro station.  The ride was no different than the C-Train back home, but with a much better view.

Upon arrival in Wellington, we explored much of the city streets and took in the Parliament building, several of the cafes and shopping areas; think Stephen Ave. in Calgary times ten.  We ducked into a cafe called ‘The Grande’, along Courtenay St. because it started pouring rain, we were feeling a little peckish and we figured we would visit the Botanic Gardens after our tummies were full.  We grabbed a screamin’ deal for breakfast:  sausage, hashbrowns, egg on toast and bacon for $6 NZD. I had the flapjacks with blackberry coulis and whipped cream for $8 NZD.  We also ordered our now regular coffees; my cappuccino, Dan’s long black.  Just before Dan paid the bill, I made a comment to the effect of, “It’s too bad that we can’t enjoy Wellington the way it should be enjoyed, given the lousy weather”.  Ten minutes later, we paid the bill, stepped out onto the streets and for the first time in 1.5 days, were greeted by sunshine.  As we made our way to the cable car, I turned to Dan and said, “Ask and it will be given to you; ” – funny how that works.

The rest of the afternoon in Wellington was spent riding up the cable car and walking through the Botanic gardens.

About 2.5 hours and over 100 photos of flowers, trees, herbs and other greenery that I’ve already forgotten the names of, we took the Metro back to Plimmerton so that we could Skype our families and show them the great view from our bedroom window! 🙂