Tao 7: North Island 2

We arrived at our BackPacker hotel in Plimmerton, a town 20km north of Wellington.  Almost every other person is from a different country in these accommodations.  The girl at the reception desk is from Netherlands. She’s quite helpful with tips on local restaurants. We had our sights fixed on a Polish Cafe that she highly recommended, but it turned out that the cafe was closed for that day.  So we went for an Indian place next door.

Local Kiwi beer

The food is pricy, but quite tasty.  We asked for the hottest curry and it didn’t disappoint.  It was very hot indeed 

Lamb curry with muhroom rice

Appetizer of grilled chicken, fish and lamb

Took this on our walk back from the restaurant

Wellington is the capital of New Zealand.  It’s located at the south end of the North Island, I guess it’s only fair to have the nation’s capital kind of in the middle.  We took the train into the city, fare was $13.50 roundtrip per person, and it took half an hour.

Plimmerton train station

Arrived at Wellington

Well, finally we are in a city again, no time to waste, we want some good food, our stomacs demand it.  I found this place called Big Thumb while doing my homework the previous night, and it turned out to be an excellent find.  The dim sum was very good, and very affordable.  We decided to come back again for dinner.  First we need to see the city.

Inside of Big Thumb

The BIG Thumb

Wellington is a small city.  The town center is maybe 2km across.  Nation’s capitals usually have good museums, and Wellington’s no exception.

Maori sculpture at the entrance to Te Papa

Inside of Te Papa

This is a Kiwi bird

It was school holiday in New Zealand.  The Te Papa is swarmed with school age children.  The museum’s admission is free (as it should be).  A large section of the museum is about the aboriginal Maori culture.  The Maori fared slightly better than American Indians and Australian aboriginals during European colonization.  There are still a sizable population of Maori in New Zealand, and their numbers are rising.  Still they were cheated of their land and resources during the colonization period.  The New Zealand government recognized this mistreatment and actually returned titles of some of the lands to the Maori.  various benefits had also been given to the Maori in recent years.

More Maori art

We took an leisurely stroll along the Oriental Pl at Wellington’s waterfront.  It’s still early spring so the area feels a little deserted.

Harbor view along Oriental Pl

A Disney-ish house up the hill

Waterfront restaurant

Chair/sculpture in the park

A small park, the silver ball in the middle is suspended with steel wires

After walking for 5 straight hours, we make a bee line for Big Thumb. It did not disappoint.  Their food truly deserved a thumbs up.

Steamed Blue Cod, extremely good. We only remembered to take a picture when we are half-done with it

夫妻肺片 tastes good, but does not taste like Sichuan food. This is more of a Cantonese place

Next morning we got on the InterIslander Ferry to the South Island.  The 3 hour ferry ride started in rain, but ended in spectacularly beautiful weather.  Because of its huge size, the ship is very stable.  The only downside is that the onboard wifi connection was offline for the entire trip, which contributed to our slow blog update 

Ferry leaving Welington behind

We arrived at the South Island in great weather

 

Top deck of the ferry

A sister ship returning to Wellington

At noon on October 13, 2011, we have landed on the South Island of New Zealand.