Caboose

From Kaikoura the bus took us to Picton, where the Inter-Islander ferry leaves for Wellington. As we got on I could see that the Kaitaki had once been the Pride of Cherbourg, I’m pretty sure I’ve travelled either on that ship or one just like it before. The journey wasn’t very exciting and after about three hours we arrived in Wellington and took the free shuttle bus to the railway station.

I checked into Nomads Capital backpackers, which claims to be a “flashpacker”, i.e. a bit more upmarket. They squeeze four pairs of bunk beds into a fairly small room and the top bunks are ridiculously high and wobbly. I had to wedge my duvet down the side of the bed so it didn’t bang off the wall every time I moved.

On my first evening I took the Wellington cable car up to the Botanic Gardens. It’s quite a nice view from up there, although it was a bit windy. I went up again the next day to visit the cable car museum, while I was there it started raining heavily, spoiling my plan of walking down into town.

Instead I passed a couple of hours visiting New Zealand’s parliament. There was an interesting tour of the Executive Wing (better known as the beehive), the parliament building and the library. Afterwards I went into the public gallery to see the end of question time and the start of the third reading of the controversial Electoral Finance bill. It was surprisingly exciting watching as speeches were made, opposition MPs booed and jeered and a couple were asked to leave by the speaker.