Our last stop on the north island is New Zealand’s capital Wellington. Since we haven’t updated our brains quickly enough we once again end up a bit outside town, but luckily Wellington is not so big, they indeed call it “the cutest little capital”. We are just a botanic garden away from the center, but still on top of he hill, so to get to downtown is not really a problem as much as getting back to the room!

The city lies stretched out around a bay and gives a great view of the hills around it. Looks a bit like Bergen really, but with a wider center. The city hosts the country’s biggest museum, with free admission and six floors dedicated to all different sort of natural, historical and cultural stuff. We spent a whole afternoon there just browsing around and getting lost!

For dinner we pick one of the few places close to our hotel which looked pretty nice from outside, they have many different kinds of food and I was indeed impressed by how much the kitchen had to offer. When we ordered a curry and a pizza at the bar, the girl said “I’ll order them right away” and I didn’t get what she meant immediately. After about 15 minutes a scooter stops outside the bar and a delivery is made: my curry. After few more minutes a boy arrives carrying a pizza in his hands: Andreas’ pizza! That’s how they manage to serve all kinds of food! They just order from take-away. I found it a great idea!

Downtown Wellington is very compact and clean, just like all other modern cities we have visted so far. The sun is shining and it is perfect for eating our homemade sandwitches on the water front, surrounded by hungry seagulls, which I am not so comfortable with!

One more day in Wellington to visit the city museum, which features the story of a ferry which hit a sunken wreck, and then sank itself inside the bay some decades ago. This just before we board the ferry to Picton on the south island. Great timing… Our ticket should then bring us further to Nelson by bus. Unfortunately, the ferry had some techincal problems and had to slow down, so we lost the last bus and had to spend the night in Picton. I am actually very glad we did, because it turned out to be a charming little village in the middle of the fiords. We were not so amused, though, with the RyanAir-esque run-around, fax and phone we had to make to get InterCity to refund our ticket.

Having a cappuccino in the sun looking at the mountains has really no price! We have read and heard in many occasions that the south island has a powerful nature and should look very similar to Norway in many aspects. Indeed, when entering the fiords on the ferry the landscape looks familiar and peaceful.

We then get on the next bus to Nelson where we are going to spend a couple of days at “The Palace backpackers”: both free breakfast and pastries for afternoon tea to cure the exhaustion of hiking about all day!