Roadtrip!!

On Tuesday we finished early at work and ran home to pack the stuff we needed. We were on a mission! For those of you not entirely clear of what our mission was, let me tell you, AC/DC was playing in Wellington (on the north island) and we (leone and I) were going to the concert and Regan and Annabelle were coming along for the trip and some fun.
Anyway, we packed in a hurry and got in the car, it was an amazing hot day and just perfect for a good drive with the windows down, wind in our hair and loud music. The drive up to Picton (where the ferry terminal is) usually takes 2 hours, our drive took 4 and a half. We stopped at lake Rotaiti, which is a beautiful lake full of eels at the bottom of a tiny mountain chain. Regan bet me 20 $ that I didn’t dare swim with the eels, so I proved him wrong and also found out that eels aren’t that interested in biting people. Did you know that eels aren’t matured (adults) until they reach the age of 90 years old?! How’s that for a fact!!
Sorry, back to the story.. Our next stop was in Blenheim, but only to get some food at the grocery store. Blenheim is about the same size as Bodo, maybe a little bit bigger. We finally arrived in Picton at about 10.30 pm and John met us at the ferry terminal and showed us back to his home about three km out of town. John is one of our regulars at the café, he is about 55-60 years old and comes into the café about 5 times a day. He used to come only 4 times a day, but after reading a research that said that all men that drink over 5 cups of coffee a day reduce their chances of prostate cancer, he started coming 5 times a day. He always buys a trim chocolate cappuccino, and in the mornings he gets a muffin as well, but without butter because he’s trying to watch his weight. John is a boatbuilder and therefore has a house and a boatyard in Picton, but is slowly moving in to his newly built house in Murchison, so he spends half his week in Picton, half in Murch. Being the nice guy that John is, he let us put our car outside his house while we were in Wellington, so that we didn’t have to bring it on the ferry, let us sleep in his sleepout behind his house and drove us to the ferry in the morning and picked us up when we came back! What a host! He even took us out for a coffee and showed us around town when we arrived late Tuesday night.
Wednesday morning at 5.30 we were back at the ferry terminal waiting for the ferry to leave. It was a beautiful ride over, the ocean was completely calm and we watched the sun come up and felt the temperature rise. When we got to Wellington it was pretty hot already. Annabelle and Leone’s aunt and cousin met us there and their cousin took us out to Paraparamu, about an hour out of town where they live. Its right next to the beach. We were pretty tired and hungry after only sleeping 4 hours and no breakfast so when we got “home” we pretty much left straight away and had lunch at a nice café and visited Lindale Farm, where they have NZ’s best ice cream, which is true! Leone and I went to the pool and swam around for a few hours, before gong back home to an amazingly good barbie. We finished the night with a stroll along the beach watching the sun set.
THE GRAND DAY: I woke up early in the morning with a smile on my face, knowing that today was AC/DC. We got a ride in with the aunt and headed straight for the Te Papa museum, which is an awesome museum that’s free and you can touch everything. We spent hours there just playing around. The rest of the day was spent walking around town, sitting on top of Mount Victoria in the middle of town and trying one of those paddle boats. It was quite funny because It just didn’t go forward and so we were stuck in the ocean bay for quite some time. After that little adventure it was finally time for the concert, so Leone and I walked/ran to the outdoor Westpac Arena and started standing in line. The concert wasn’t anything short of amazing, please read concert review.
After the concert Leone and I went out for a few drinks, as we were both blown away and not knowing what to do with ourselves and not in the mood to go home. At 1 am we decided to check what time the trains went home and to our surprise realized there was no trains going home, we were shocked to find that no buses went either and just laughed when we realized the taxi was 160 $ and all the hotels and hostels were fully booked for the night because of the concert! We sat down to have a think, we could either sit at an all night Burger King or go from pub to pub until the train left in the morning. Interesting!
As we were having a think Mr. Popsicle walked by and turned out he was in the same pickle as us. All he had managed to do was buy two popsicles while thinking of the situation, and now found himself thinking over the situation with us. He was going the same way as us, so we decided to hail down a cab to ask how much it would be for each of us. As we were hailing down a cab, a postal truck stopped and asked if we needed a lift! If we paid him gas money he would take us to our door, so we jumped in without hesitating. I got stuck in the back with Popsicle, but he was alright, working in the commercial industry. An hour later we were outside our door, had got home cheaper than the train would have been and had a grand ol’ laugh before falling soundly asleep as the two happiest girls in the world.
Our last day in Wellie, started off quite an early one again, it was too hot to sleep and I was too excited to tell everyone about the concert and try on my t-shirts to sleep. So was Leone and after reliving the concert we went for a run on the beach and a swim in the ocean, which was about 28 degrees. It was a beautiful start to the day! We went back to the house and had a little barbecue and fruit salad for lunch, before packing all our stuff and heading back into wellie. As a finish to our little holiday we went to the Lonestar restaurant for dinner. It’s a very cool NZ restaurant chain with a western cowboy interior and style. We met the aunt here, and she is so lovely, I had two very good strawberry margaritas and a massive plate of nachos. Mmmm.. The aunt was so kind, she paid for the entire meal and drove us to the ferry after!
The ferry ride again was perfect and John met us yet again at the ferry terminal and drove us to his place to pick up our car.
The car ride home started off quite rowdy, but died down quickly and by the time we reached home at 2.30 in the morning we were completely exhausted but very very happy and content.
Oh’ ye ol’ wellie!