We had a nice leisurely day
in Wellington today. After sleeping in, we had good intentions to head straight
down to the iSite to do some South Island planning. However, minutes stepping
out of our hotel, we were distracted by an outdoor clothing clearance sale
followed by a bookstore where we spent some time looking at their Bali Lonely
Planet guidebook.
Because Christmas holiday is
coming up, it's actually kind of difficult traveling by the seat of your pants
because we have to consider how many weeks we'll need in NZ, then how long to
spend in Australia, and finally, how to go about traveling around Bali so that
we know where to book a place during the holiday week where it supposedly fills
up.
After eating at a downtown
food court, we eventually made it to the iSite where we decided not to do
another Lord of the Rings movie set tour since we didn't recognize most of the
fictional locations listed in the brochures despite having just watched
Fellowship of the Rings.
We strolled around the CBD window
shopping while busy locals bustled around us. We took the cable car up the hill
mistakingly purchasing a round trip ticket as we would later walk back down the
hill anyways.
At the top, there was a cable
car museum about cable car history in Wellington. Very similar to San
Francisco, except there they had a working cable system instead of a mockup.
The walk down the Botanical
Gardens was nice. I should have worn more than just my t-shirt as the weather
was windy and cool in the shade. Kind of like Canada, cooler than you'd expect.
At the base, we made it just
in time for the last Parliament Building tour of the day. This was actually
well worth the hour visiting the Beehive and Parliament building, gaining a bit
of history about NZ, as well as its similar executive and legislative arms of
government.
We had to walk back to our
hotel because our parking ran out. Here it doesn't seem like you can buy parking
for a full day which was quite annoying. We moved the car to the street where
it was free until 8am the next morning, so we get to sleep in a little.
On the way back, we actually
bought the Bali and Lombok Lonely Planet to do some planning. Here we
experienced the high prices of books in the country. I remember that was the
case in Australia too where books were so expensive, people set up book clubs
and shared each other's books to make it more affordable. The Lonely Planet
which was listed as $25 USD cost $50 NZ, about $40 CAD equivalent.
Which brings me to why things
in Canada (and the US) cost so much less than goods anywhere else. Here, a soup
at a restaurant would cost $8 CAD. Pop about $4, $3.5 for a can at the store. A
whole roasted chicken at the supermarket was $9, a waterproof camera was $460
when BestBuy.ca listed it for $320. Gas is $1.70 a liter.
The things I found cheaper
were hotels, about half the price of an equivalent in North America. Car
rentals is probably less too at $28 a day, and when you work it out, cell phone
plans would be better.
We had dinner at a place
called Hog's Breath Cafe which had surprisingly good prime rib. I negotiated a
20% discount, as there was a coupon at iSite, but I neglected to take it
because, who would have thought we'd go to this restaurant anyways?
While at the restaurant, I
scored another deal booking a ferry to South Island. The famous Interislander
was full, but there are actually two ferries that operate between Welling and
Picton. The Bluebridge Ferry was having a promotion and cost $50 less with a
student card.
After dinner, we watched
Contagion, went back to our hotel, did a load of laundry, in an actual laundry
machine this time, and then bed.
Reading about Bali actually
got us both excited about Indonesia, which we were a bit hesitant about
initially after hearing about the scams. We are also considering adding
Philippines to the itinerary and perhaps abbreviating Thailand, since we've
been there already.
In any case, looking forward
to finishing Wellington tomorrow morning and seeing what's next in the South
Island. The outdoor clothing store guy admitted that South Island hands down
beats North for pretty much everything.