A lovely hot day
June 2 in
New ZealandToday we had to pack up and wave goodbye to our lovely little airbnb escape. It's been nice having a bit of luxury after so many nights in the campervan but it did remind us how annoyingly restricted being in booked accommodation can be. With the campervan we can go wherever we like, stay as long as we like and just up and leave whenever we've had enough of a place. After packing the van back up we headed back into the city to the same carpark we parked in yesterday. Our plan for today was to make the most of the nice weather and just explore the capital a bit. We had a stroll around the shops and a quick morning coffee before venturing to the Wellington cable car. It's more like a tram that goes up hill but it does provide quite a direct link to the centre from the suburbs. The journey was only 5 minutes long and passed through a few tunnels which have been illuminated with rainbow LED lights which made quite a nice light show as you passed through each one. It stops in the botanical gardens and gave us a lovely view over the city below. We decided that although we'd bought return tickets it'd be nicer to do a walk around the gardens and walk back into the city, especially when the route is downhill. We sat and ate lunch near the rockery garden where they had a lavender plant that was attracting lots of monarch butterflies. It's hard to believe it's autumn with such summery looking butterflies around. We continued to wonder through the gardens after lunch and it wasn't too long before we'd made it out onto the road. Initially we just started walking too engrossed in conversation but we soon realised we didn't actually know where we were. With a bit of help from Google we made it to the parliament buildings. The building on the right is very grand and lovely to look at. Unfortunately this theme doesn't continue and at the end of the row on the left is the building called the Beehive. I have no idea why they chose to make it out of concrete rather than the same stone as the other buildings but it did look awful and very much like a 1960s office block. We meandered around town and eventually made it to the waterfront which was a hub of activity and offered some lovely harbour views. We shared a gingernut gelato ice cream which was rather refreshing. I've developed a bit of an obsession with ginger flavoured things since being here. The water wasn't the cleanest near the habour walls so it was interesting to see some teenage girls choosing to jump into the water with rubbish floating around. Eventually we were back at the van and after much research on Campermate booked ourselves into a campsite in Lower Hutt just north of the city centre for the night. We managed to navigate the cities complicated lanes and got to the site in good time. Then came the time to plug in our camper and this is when we discovered we so really do have a problem with the house battery. It hadn't charged when we drove to Picton but it turns out it is refusing to charge even when plugged in. The inverter is just flashing random numbers and it did briefly show up a fault code which means the cells are faulty. Annoyingly as well we discovered this only 20 minutes after the office for our rental company had closed so we can't phone up about it until tomorrow. At least we are in the capital of the country so we should have the most options for places to get it looked at and fixed. For now we are lucky that we have a communal kitchen to use so it's only the lights we are missing but we do have two torches. Hopefully tomorrow we can ring up and it won't be too long before it can be looked at. Something was bound to go wrong eventually when you have the campervan for 3 months!Read more
