Girls Love Dirt

I'm very excited because tomorrow I fly to Christchurch to visit my friend Tanya. She's moving to Australia in a couple of weeks to perform with a circus and then work on a new play, so this is my last (and first) chance to visit her in her home town. She is the best hula-hoop dancer I've ever seen. I saw her perform for the first time a couple of months ago in Wellington. In honour of this (or maybe its just a good excuse), I thought this would be a good opportunity to jump back in time to share with you some of my pictures and impressions of the Windy City that puts all the other so called Windy Cities to shame.

I traveled to Wellie on March 2nd on the overnight bus and arrived completely bleary eyed at about 7 in the morning on a Saturday. It was actually quite a magical time to arrive in a new city. Most of the city was still sleeping, and because daybreak had only recently settled on the city, the morning had a sense of newness and wonder to match my sleepy-eyed enjoyment of this winding delightful town. Well, city really. The population is 205 500 strong.

After a wee bit of rest at the hostel it was time to get out and explore. The best thing to do, I decided, was to get up on top of things and get some perspective on this new place. I took the cable car to the top of the largest hill (not mountain, mind you) in Wellington.

The guidebook didn't lie. It is a gorgeous view.

The best way back into the city is to wander through the lush 26-hectare Botanical Gardens.

I was very lucky that the weather held off for as long as it did because when the wind and rain finally started, there wouldn't have been much of stopping to smell the roses. Wellington is a much more artistic and vibrant city with its endless cozy cafes, tiny boutiques and never ending festivals, but the idea of living there in the winter quickly became a very unappealing thought. When the wind and rain began I whipped out my trusty umbrella to protect me. I think I actually heard the weather gods laugh at me as the wind quickly turned my umbrella inside out and then furiously pounded the shaft of the umbrella back into its closed position. I've heard that Wellington is the only city where you'll see perfectly good umbrellas tossed into the rubbish bins in disgust.

Luckily Wellington does offer some wonderful indoor activities like the beautiful Te Papa Museum.

It was in this museum that I learned that New Zealand gets more storms than anywhere else in the world. Somehow that information didn't surprise me when I read it.

( ...to be continued... )