From Christchurch to Wellington - Welcome to the North Island

Hello again to our story time from the other side of the world! As most of you reading this blog will know me well enough to be able to judge the importance friendship has to me, you won't be surprised if after so much time I'll dedicate one post here to the subject of meeting friends. Well, all right, it was not exactly my choice, we just happened to meet a lot of "old" friends in Christchurch and Wellington, but still, it's a nice topic for a post, isn't it?! About a month and a half ago, we welcomed you to Christchurch and we ourselves were welcomed by the wonderful Pankhursts, Diane and Brian. Now, after having finished our tour through the South Island, we were their guests once more. Unfortunately only for one night because they left the city to travel themselves but nevertheless we spent a wonderful evening laughing and conversing with them. It's great to meet such open-minded and life-embracing people! And of course, I should not forget to mention David rejoicing in meeting his old friend Casper the cat again!

However, our return to Christchurch also offered us the opportunity to meet with the Bates, Dianne and Mitch, (our wonderful hosts in the Marlborough Sounds and in Wanaka) again. They were so nice as to invite us to stay at their home for a couple of days and of course, we could not refuse that. We spent a great time together getting to know each other even better and we enjoyed their beautiful house and all the luxury that came with it! Dianne's fabulous cooking and baking (Thank you very much for the cake, the muffins, the cookies, Dianne!!!), the comfortable bed, the internet access, the home cinema, and... the pool!!! Yes, you may believe it or not, but they have their own pool and we actually set the whole surrounding under water playing water-polo in it! ;)

Other than meeting friends, we also did something for our general education and went to the national museum, the Museum of Canterbury and learnt heaps in this really great place. If anyone gets the chance to go there, it is really worthwhile. However, even more convincing for us was the visit to the Fudge Factory - as you may imagine! It's a cozy and cute little place where they still do everything by hand and we were able to follow the whole production process from the mixing and heating of the ingredients, to the pourring of the fudge, the cutting up, the wrapping of packages, ... . While doing so, we were allowed to taste all different sorts of fudge and I have to admit, it was soooo good that I was really, really sick by the time we left...

So, after some last relaxing days, it was finally time to say goodbye to the South Island. And on we went to Wellington. We thought we might trick the rain and travel faster than the bad weather, especially when taking the ferry but the first view of the city convinced us of the contrary. Apparently, there is some kind of transmitter placed somewhere amongst our belongings in order to make sure that the rain clouds won't lose us. It is hopeless!

Nevertheless, we had an awesome time in Wellington. One the one hand, this was due to the fact that the city is definitely very, very beautiful and interesting, situated amongst rolling hills and alongside beautiful beaches, with great "old" buildings and a very young and lively population (unfortunately, we do not have any pictures at present...). On the other hand, our visit was very special because I surprisingly met a very good old friend of mine again. Some of you will probably be looking at the picture now asking yourselves if it is possible. And yes, after years, Nadi and I finally met again and it was simply great! We had so much to talk about, so many stories to share, and, like in the good old days :) we completely forgot the time over our talk and went to bed late, late, late at night. At this point, thank you very, very much for your hospitality, Nadi and Robert! For those of you who know her, Nadi is doing her legal clerkship (Referendariat) here and spending three months in Wellington. She found our blog over the Internet, contacted me via email a couple of days ago, and so we met again! We spent some wonderful time exploring the city (parliament building, university, German bakery), the cable car, the views, cafes at the beach,..., etc. Another fabulous thing for all of you tea lovers, our tea network still works! Nadi introduced me to a wonderful tea shop in Wellington and now I do not have to suffer from black tea in teabags anymore but can savor fresh loose tea! Hmmmmmm!

Overall, Wellington almost felt like home: meeting old friends, strolling through a tea shop and bookstores, spending hours sitting in cafes, going out for a drink at night, playing some billard. It did me some good to feel all of this again and David and I both were rather reluctant when we had to move on. This is definitely the first city we would love to live in without hesitation! But, our next WWOOFing experience was calling and so we had to get on the route again!


PS. Some more good news was that we got our visa for Thailand in Wellington, so our travels will continue in January!