30 degrees, sunny
Another packing up session and we left Napier before breakfast as we weren’t particularly hungry, planning on getting something light to eat en-route to Wellington. This should be about a 4 hour journey. The drive was through some beautiful countryside, just early summer so all the plants are fresh and green, the sky was blue with white fluffy clouds, magnolias as big as oak trees just finishing blooming (must have been stunning in full flower) and surrounded by mountains on one side and hills on the other – again not a spec of litter and everywhere looked well maintained and tidy. It really is a beautiful country.
We stopped for coffee in a little town and the decided to head towards the coast to the south east of Wellington as the guide book said that the biggest fur seal colony in New Zealand was on this coast and also some eroded rock formations called the Putangirua Pinnacles were worth a look.
We came across the Pinnacles first so parked up and took the lower path – the river path literally. Walked up the river bed which was a strange landscape of river stones and water channels to cross and re-cross for about half an hour or so
We met some people coming back down and asked if it was worth the trip and got the impression they were underwhelmed by the sight but we continued on and eventually came across some rock formations in the cliff face which looked quite interesting. This being a river bed that probably floods when it rains up the mountainside there wasn’t any signage, so we searched around and climbed up a tributary river bed but couldn’t see any rock formations, so assumed that was it and made our way back down to the car. At the car park we found an information board with a photo of what we were supposed to see which did look quite a bit more interesting! But it was very hot and quite a slog to get up the river bed so we settled with what we’d found.
We drove on around the coast to Cape Palliser in search of the fur seal colony, ending up on unsealed roads again until we finally found the Four Seal Colony as John called it. I was expecting loads of seals all piled up on top of one another with David Attenborough whispering somewhere behind a rock, but we only found 4! Very disappointing 100 mile detour!
We finally arrived in Wellington at about 7.30 pm after driving across the mountain range on State Highway 1. The drivers on these roads are very well mannered, there are passing places for slow vehicles to move over and with exception they always do, though the passing places are invariably on tight bends which makes for an exciting drive. We’re in a Novotel in Wellington which is in the densely packed commercial district and we had the usual problems with unloading our numerous bags and car parking in a city centre. Hotel is a bit soul-less compared to our previous ones, but it is centrally located.
We took a very tired walk down to the Quayside area where we had a very nice meal in a waterfront restaurant.