Wellington (Friday/Saturday 17./18. of June)

Seven o’clock, my flight is cancelled! With my luggage I went to the airport just to see that my flight was cancelled. They started to fly on Thursday afternoon at every airport, but Queenstown. Fortunately they transferred all passengers to the five to twelve flight on an aircraft which was here since Wednesday. So one day and two hours later I left Queenstown flew first to Christchurch and further to Wellington. There I took the bus to the city, but had some problems where to go out of the bus. The bus driver didn’t really understand where I want to get off and so I got off after we passed the parliament. That was, in fact, a key place for me: I knew that I shouldn’t pass this building! xD
However, with my big backpack, my suitcase and a smaller bag I walked town towards the waterfront, where the Downtown backpackers is situated. On my way down I met a kind woman, who asked where I want to go. She had just parked her car and was on her way back to the office. She explained me the way to the backpacker and after fifteen minutes I arrived gladfully at the hostel. There I checked in and waited for Anna, who I was supposed to meet at four.
We went to town and looked for a place to have dinner, because none of us was interested to cook. It was in the Cuba Street, where we found a Spanish restaurant with excellent food.
We both lost one day cause of the ash cloud and that’s why Saturday was a full program day. Firstly, we walked to the visitor information, I bought a ticket for the sightseeing bus and we drove almost one loop until the cable car station. The cable cabin (swiss made) brought us up to the hills above Wellington and the Botanic gardens. Although it’s winter here, it was nice to walk through the park and we found some flowers as well. We’d just finished our walk through the park when it started to rain and were glad that our bus arrived and drop us off at Te Papa. This is the national museum of New Zealand and is very interesting and also quite popular. When you enter the building you can let your coat and bag at a reception for free and start at one of four floors. The exhibitions show about the flora and fauna of New Zealand, Maoris, the history of the last 200 years, earthquakes and volcanoes and lot more. We were so interested that we left the museum only because it closed at six o’clock.
After that we walked through the city until we were hungry enough to have dinner. We walked in a well looking restaurant were we had a good piece of meat and cooked it by ourselves on a hot stone. It sounds a bit complicated and in fact it was, but also absolutely delicious.