Edinburgh Tattoo in Windy Wellington.

Feb 17th  Still catching up!

This trip we are heading to the North Island via Bluebridge.

We left the Lane pretty late as I was working on various things getting the bus ready for the Journey away up to Whangapararoa.

 I resprayed the bike rack and fitted it back on the bus, new black foam in the boot, sorted out better storage under the seats for Christines clothes and off we headed with new graphics and a spruce up of little paint chips etc. I fitted two bikes and two unicycles and covered with a foam sheet and a Barbecue cover. We left at 6.50pm, had fish and chips at Haven fish chip shop, where I had to re-adjust the bike covers so the rear lights could be seen. Got into Picton around 9.30 pm and parked up across the road from the Bluebridge terminal. The park up beside the NPD station was not such a good idea as truckers were visiting all night and the very strong lights made it seem like daylight, so I didn't get much sleep. 

Pretty easy sailing across the straight.

In need of a paint job...for a tourist ship, a bit rough!

The Bluebridge ferry left just after 8am getting into Wellington just before noon with a slow exit from the Ferry onto the lunchtime traffic. We called into Te Papa but parking was pretty full and continued onto Evans Bay, a free park up which had plenty of space. (though it did fill up later in the day) The wind sculpture as you can see was fair healed over with Wellingtons famous over abundant wind. We caught the city bus using our Goldcard, getting off in Courtney place walked around to Cuba street shopping and also I went busking. It's always fun busking in Wellington, my favourite place is the Wellington Railway Station, with its fabulous echo chamber, high ceiling, marble floors and walls

Right in the city with the tall buildings the wind even gets stronger and the flag is going straight up!

We happened to be walking past the Westpac Stadium when the Fijiian band was rehearsing,

they sang unaccompanied, it was so moving, however on the night in the stadium,

 with the wind and poor sound projection we heard nothing!

I'd say the average age of the audience, 

who had come from all over NZ

 and even Australia were seasoned goldcard members

At the Cake-tin (the Westpac stadium) 

We got there far too early and had to wait for the 8.30pm start.

Specially erected castle...good effort, but not a patch on the real thing!

I was having difficulty with my new Canon Camera with all the extra bells and whistles settings and options....even reading the book didn't help.  I was unable to get the focus working at zoom length and therefore was unable to take any really good shots, I also had left my glasses in the bus so this was another factor. The focus problem turned out to be a faulty contact with the battery

  The Tattoo ran over time, it was really good I liked the Norwegians, the NZ Army Band and the Swiss Drumming band. Mostly of a very high quality tho there were issues of sound quality and poor lighting occurrences. The very windy conditions saw hats and kilts flying. We caught another bus back through to Kilbirnie and walked home to Evans Bay before bed after 12.20am.

 After breakie we left Evans Bay at 8am taking the #2 highway though Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt, Featherston, Greytown, Masterton,  Stopping at the Mount Bruce Bird sanctuary highly recommended. Drove through Ekatahuna, Woodville and onto the #50 to Hastings via Ongaonga. The weather as we drove north slowly cleared and became sunny though the wind was pretty strong in most places till we got near Hastings.

The next blog will be about Art Deco land....ie Napier!

Till then, take care, have fun and B Creative.

Jimu