The Wellington Layover

25 August 2016

Wellington was not on my destination list. For Angela, it was--but for me, it was simply a necessary stop to get to the South Island.

Arriving in Wellington

It was around 6AM when we arrived in Wellington. The intercity bus from Rotorua dropped us at Wellington station. We knew the city bus was in same place but Wellington station was huge. There’s Bus A, Bus B and Bus C. We asked for directions and found the right bus. So, we were on the right bus, we knew we needed to get off at Courtney Place and now it’s just a matter of knowing if we were already at Courtney Place. One of my difficulties in riding buses is that the bus stop signs are typically too small to read. We usually tell the driver if he could let us know when we’ve reached our destination, they don’t. Fortunately, we saw the street sign reading Courtney Place and left the bus as soon as it made a stop.

We made our way to the hostel to check-in. We knew it was too early to check-in and we were told we can return at 2PM so we just left our bag and went to Burger King, being the only place with seats that was open at this time. My foot was aching terribly and I was limping. Every step I took was a struggle. I took my time eating breakfast since I didn’t want to walk just yet. After a while, we went to Papa Museum and waited for it to open.

Te Papa Museum

Papa Museum was an interactive museum quite suitable for children and adults alike. Perfect for me. The museum seemed to promote unity among the different races. The Maori were one of the first settlers of New Zealand. Then the British occupied the country. Then people from around the world migrated to New Zealand as well. The museum gave us a glimpse of New Zealand’s past and present.

After 3 hours in the museum, we went back to hostel. The hostel was terrible. There was rotten food in the rooms and the sheets were dirty (it had LOTS of hairs!). But I was tired so I placed my towel on the bed and dozed off. We were planned on going to the cable car but we overslept. I didn’t want my foot to evolve from an ache to an actual injury so I figured that resting for the day would be a good investment considering we still had two weeks ahead of us.

Cuba Street

When we woke up at night, we headed toward Cuba Street. We walked along this popular street and ended up eating pizza from a street stall. Later that night, we went to a local place called The Library for some wine although we ended up drinking craft beer. After some waffles, we ended our short day and bid Wellington goodnight.