New Zealand – day 6 (Wellington, October 23)

We pulled into port early on the 23rd, had breakky, and disembarked as soon as we could.
Cath had organised a hire car, but we already knew that the car hire place was not close to the wharf at which we had docked.
However, when we asked one of the friendly tourism people welcoming us to Wellington, she took us over to a security guy who said he would get one of the other security guys to drive us to the car hire place if we were happy to wait a minute.
Naturally, we waited, and sure enough, couple of minutes later, this security guy rolls up in a little people mover/minibus and drives us over to the car hire pickup point.
Once we had our wheels, we decided to head northwest out of the city. We were at this point, toying with the idea of trying to do the loop consisting of Wellington > Featherston > Masterton > Palmerston North > back down the west coast to Wellington.
All up, this would have been about a 350km (220 mile) round trip. We decided that no, it was pushing it a bit far. Sure, we could have done the distance, but there wouldn’t have been any time to stop and take photos along the way.
So instead, we headed out to Featherston over a single lane mountain pass (would have been an awesome bike road in dry weather), then headed south around Lake Wairarapa, then back up to Featherston and back into Wellington.
Saw some lovely countryside along the way.
Once back in Wellington, we went and spent a couple of hours in the Te Papa Museum, followed by some Max-time in the park on the foreshore.
Finally, a quick trip up Mount Victoria (is there a town in New Zealand which DOESN’T have a Mount Victoria?) for a stunning view of the city, then refill the car, and return to the wharf.
Again, another day where we were glad we had hired a car and been able to drive ourselves around and see the things we wanted to see, on our own schedule.

Take me to: Day 5 <- | -> Day 7