Well all good things must come to an end and we're back on the overnight train to Auckland after a really enjoyable week ...

I have to say I'm really impressed with Wellington. For a big city its got a really cozy feel to it. I reckon we'll be back ...

Before we left this evening we went for a walk along the waterfront looking for a bite to eat. This picture was taken literally 10 minutes walk from the very centre of Wellington.

Wellington's beautiful bay.

If that doesn't show how unlike a typical city Wellington is then this will.

I ended up going to the kite surfing instructor's gaff after the lesson (he was picking up some stuff) and couldn't believe it. This is at most 20 minutes drive from the city center, its a big 3 bedroom place hanging off a cliff, with a beautiful balcony, totally secluded ... and I can guarantee you that you'd be hard pushed renting a decent 1 bedroom place in Dublin for cheaper. Its sickening really :-)

Pete's gaff.

Some things you shouldn't really laugh at ... but this is worth a little snigger.

A Going Out For Business sale.

I'm usually not one to get sucked in by promotions, but I have to admit that the Mars Free Baaa promotion got me. After god know's how many Mars bars I finally got a free one. Yay.

Maaa's free baaa.

Am I turning Catherine into a geek? Its a bit worrying really. She's not supposed to like "puters".

I'm having a bit of fun with this camera. Try here for a look at my lack of artistic ability ...

The rest of the holiday pictures are here.

Cathy hacking in the ferry terminal.

We went all the way to Picton and just did a wine tour... but it was good fun.

Bob our tour guide was a laugh. We had an Aussie couple trying to do the posh wine thing but failed miserably when the lady got plastered.

Us at Farmingham's winery.

The weather was amazing and drinking wine in it seemed perfectly natural. We had plenty of wine to taste and took advantage of it ...

A close up!

Unfortunately we awoke this morning to miserable rainy weather. We ended up waiting here in the ferry terminal for hours because it was too wet to do anything else.

Bye bye Picton ...

Right now, we're sitting on the ferry from Wellington to Picton on the South Island. We're planning on just staying the night and going on a wine tour.

Being on this ferry really reminds me of going on the ferry to France when I was younger ....

We've had some fun over the last few days. We've been horse treking, shopping, wandering around the place etc.

I went for a kite surfing lesson yesterday. The lesson was just to get used to controlling a kite so I didn't even get in the water, but it was really cool and I can't wait to do more.

Two gimps trying to control a couple of horses.

The other night, we came across this arty farty Belgian pub. Loads of really nice (and strong) Belgian beer on offer and, of course, we had to have a huge serving off Moules Frites (that's mussels and chips for the illiterate :-). Yum. A full kilo of mussels and a huge bowl of chips for about 8 euro ...

Nice beer.

To chill out we went looking for some sort of a board game to play in the hostel's common room and came across a jigsaw. Of course, once you get started at a jigsaw its impossible to stop until you finish so after spending hours and hours over a few days on it we finally finished it ...

A one thousand piece (well 996 really, there was 4 missing) jigsaw with no picture of what the result looks like ...

What an amazing waste of time.

As I was writing this we passed into the Queen Charlotte Sound, basically a long strait on the way into Picton, so I had to jump up and take a few photos.

More beautiful scenery.

Off we go on a weeks holiers around the North Island.

Our first destination - Wellington. We got an overnight train (12 hrs) from Auckland which was good fun, but we were a bit wrecked so took it easy on our first day.

New Zealand's capital city.

We got a cable car up to the top of some hill for a gawk at the city from a height. Wellington is another city right by the sea and its known as the Windy City.

Cathy coming up with a plan.

On the top the hill was a big botanical gardens with loads of space to wander around in and explore.

I couldn't resist the playground ...

... and got stuck in a keyhole.

In Auckland and Christchurch we came across kind of colonial style green houses - called Winter Gardens. Wellington has one too - good fun to wander around.

And we saw some pretty flowers.