Wellington, the capital of New Zealand

It was a 3+ hour drive to Wellington, we needed gas and pulled off the road. Small town, Norsewood,” very proud of their Viking heritage. Small gas station, one pump in front of their general store. I went in to give my credit card info and a crotchety old guy just said, “ya pump first.” So, I’m pumping my gas -first- and crotchety old guy comes out and is watching me. I try to strike up a conversation on where is best to eat here in Norsewood. His reply, “ that’d be the cafe across the street there, the only one we’ve got, you’ll like it.” But that was only the beginning…over the next few minutes Terri and I learned that he raised his grand kids, private school is $80,000NZ a year, the history of Norsewood, their festivals and parties, what it’s like being retired, never call a Kiwi an Australian, “Cause we’ll kill ya then,” but most of all we really appreciated the cafe recommendation.

We arrived in Wellington in the mid afternoon and headed to a “freedom“ campsite down near the marina not too close to the downtown area that can be viewed as a little “seedy” or “having lots of character.”

We took the long walk into downtown, walked Cuba Street, where the character and characters are. It was quite interesting, like you find is most big metropolitan cities. We found a good window seat in a nice pub, had a beverage and people watched. We cruised our way through Cuba St. and had dinner at a Turkish restaurant.

The next morning we walked To the Victoria Mountain lookout and then on to the Te Papa Museum of New Zealand, (historical museum).