Our flight to Wellington was Friday morning (25 October). Our flight arrived at about 11:30, we collected our luggage, and then met our driver to take us to the hotel. He introduced himself as Phil and I remarked that both Lisa and I should be able to remember his name, as Phil was my dad's name and is Lisa's husband's name. He was great, very friendly and informative.
We arrived at the hotel, called the QT Wellington. It was a little strange there. It didn't look like a typical hotel entrance; Phil had to turn into what almost looked like a very dark alley to drop us off. We entered through the doorway, and it wasn't clear at all where registration was, but we did see someone at what turned out to be the concierge desk. Since we were early for check-in, we dropped our bags and went out looking for a place to get some food.
The hotel is billed as a luxury boutique hotel. There were some things I really liked about. It had a very eclectic vibe, and our room was in the newer wing which is quite contemporary in design. The communal areas of the hotel feature individual original artworks (which are for sale). I can't say as much for the service though. They seemed a little disorganized. Of course, we were only there for a day or so. Maybe we just showed up at the wrong time.
We were booked to go on the Zealandia by Night Tour that evening. Zealandia is a fully fenced haven for some of the rarest native New Zealand wildlife. This actually means mostly birds. New Zealand has only two land mammals that are native, both types of bats. As a result of this fact, many New Zealand birds developed as flightless as they had no land predators. Some of the animals living in Zealandia include the kiwi, the kaka (a parrot), and the tuatara, which is a descendant of dinosaurs. Many of the residents of Zealandia aren't found anywhere else in the world.
It definitely sounded interesting, but it was looking like an absolutely miserable night. Lisa wasn't feeling very well, and I wasn't looking forward to trying to find and identify birds in the rain and wind and dark and fog. We decided to cancel, and to take a break from activity, and just stayed in our room.
The company for which Phil worked was picking us up to take us to the airport the next morning, and we had asked if he would be our driver. He wasn't, but he switched, and so we saw him the next morning at 7:20 to take us to the harbour to board the 'Interislander', our ferry to Picton (south island). It's about our 4-hour trip. We hadn't really realized it until we got there, but our travel agent had booked us priority tickets which gave us access to the special VIP lounge, which made for a very pleasant ferry ride! Here are just a few pics from the ferry trip.
Stay tuned for our adventures on south island starting in the next post!
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