Windy Wellington- and missing Rotorua

So we finally left Cactus Jacks ... pretty sure they thought us bloody Aussies were never leaving, so we thought it was time to head down to Wellington.

I'm not much of a planner, coz I like life to jump out and surprise me, and I'm not sure what adventures lay ahead but I loved Rotorua and I hope it hasn't seen the last of Chrissy and Katie. I was actually pretty sad to leave, even almost got a tear in my eye when Cactus Paul gave us a hug good bye (but I still cry everytime I watch The Little Mermaid so?)....

Anyways... um.... after being a lazy butt and sleeping all day and getting pizza, we all just sat around Wednesday night for a movie night and watched Boy (coz i skipped out on Losers)... which is like the funniest movie ever and then (after not too much convincing,) I headed out for one last drink with Jay and some other guys..... lost my shoes (temporarily thank god) so I had to go out in jandles and hope they let me in... which they did!!! But i figured out why you are not allowed out in jandles, coz they are the worst shoes to dance in ever! And i didn't wanna be a hobo and dance barefoot again...anyways Lava Bar closed up pretty quick and there was no "One More Song" chant so I just headed on back to bed (on bunk beds!!!!! When I was little I was sometimes pretty jealous that my brothers got bunk beds, even though I got my own room and they shared)

um so in the morning we said a quick goodbye to the people at Cactus Jacks... (thats when the almost tear happened... how embarrassing) and headed off to do some last minute Rotorua shopping... (which is not really the place to shop! Unless you want a NZ themed gift, which we didn't) We wanted to get a present for Cactus Jack's coz they were pretty great at looking after us and fixing Chrissy's being sick and keeping our days full of activities, so we headed off in search of anything Cactus themed, which was like the hardest thing ever. We contemplated calling them and getting them to change the theme to a nautical one, coz every single shop sold something nautical themed, but we finally ended up at the most crazy random store ever.... it used to be a paint shop, but is now a shop run by two little old ladies who seem on a mission to find the most random collection of items ever and sell them in a paint shop. We ended up with this pretty cute mirror that has a coyote next to a cactus howling at the moon and a massager for Dan (the most appropriate gift ever). So after being gift givers, getting another round of good bye hugs and collecting our cold pizza for breakfast we headed off on the looong drive down to Wellington.

Was a pretty uneventful drive, stopped off for the worst coffee I have ever had (lesson learned - never drink coffee at a place with 'Trout' in the name), were impressed by the size of Lake Taupo, saw snow on the mountains just past Taupo (I was in awe of the snow)... and also saw some cows with super long, skinny legs which made me laugh for ages. New Zealand is very much like Australia coz there are soooo many road works, 'cept you have to do 30 km at roadworks here and can only go 100 km when there are none.

The funniest thing ever happened though, we called a hostel for two nights accomodation, (we are switching to a hotel on Saturday) and we found and booked a really cute one with a grand staircase.... so after looking on the map for ages and getting really frustrated trying to find it, we realised that the staircase place was in Christchurch... and we were in Wellington (looking at a map of Christchurch).... So after some explaining we cancelled and ended up booking Wellywood backpackers in Wellington. The place is no Cactus Jacks, pretty much the only thing the two have in common is that I can't work the showers at Wellywood either! Good news is tht it's no Mousetrap either.... it has hooks on the door and is next to LoneStar so there are pluses. And now we have a place to stay in Christchurch when we get there!

Anyways... WELLINGTON...

So far we are somewhat confused by Wellington. Everyone told us that we would hate Auckland and Rotorua (which we loved) and love Wellington.... but last night, maybe it was the tiredness and the rain, we were quite unimpressed. We found this cute place called Coyote for dinner (it was like Mexican/Kiwi food, so we celebrated with Margaritas... thought we should take a break from vodka) and then went and saw Dinner for Schmucks, which was hilarious. and then just went back to Wellywood.

I woke up this morning and the sun was shining, and I am determined to love Wellinton so i put on my favourite dress and cowboy boots and headed off for some shopping and Starbucks.

PS. Even the Starbucks ladies in Rotorua are the nicest Starbucks people ever... even better than the guy who took photos of me and him with sad faces the day the Canberra one closed.

First off I was disappointed coz I was really excited about the cable cars in Wellington.. im going to listen to The Fray song, Over my Head (Cable Car) while in a cable car, but i think coz of the song title  i assumed a cable car went over your head so i expected a cross between a monorail and a rollercoaster. and a cable car is not anything like a rollercoaster/monorail hybrid like i thought...it is like a bus, which drives on the road, attached to cables!!! Sadly my head let me down... but once I recovered from the disappointment I got excited again so we are going to try eat dinner in a cable car tonight (while I listen to the song).

Hmm, well shopping went well, had a caramel white hot chocolate at some really cool coffee place and then kinda went a bit crazy with the whole havent shopped in ages thing... all stuff I need kinda, like shoes, lingerie, dress, movie, pink glitter covered flower, mask, maori santa christmas decoration... found a massive Christmas shop (and i LOVE christmas) so i got super excited, we got really cute little chocolates, (white chocolate with vodka and feijoa... ) bought a book called A - Z of Hellraisers, had an afternoon vodka... and then got a taxi. Stupid taxi driver was even worst than the taxi driver who got us lost in Sydney and charged us ten bucks. This one lectured us on drinking at 4 ("too early, too early") and then refused to drop us at the back packers ("too hard, get out here")... worst $11 dollars I spent!

We booked a Lord of the Rings tour for tomorrow and we have the four nations game too... which was #1 on my New Zealand to do list... and are staying in an actual hotel, which we are really looking forward to, coz Wellywood is not friendly like Cactus.

um and that's kinda it for now...