Dateline – January 31, 2015 – Wellington

After a fantastic breakfast at the Millhills Lodge we took to the road for Wellington.  The drive was beautiful as we meandered south driving through small towns, stopping for “takeout” and a public restroom we took the coast road down 56-58 driving though small beach areas.

We arrived in Wellington and headed to our hotel for the next two nights, it was called the  Museum Art Hotel.  A very interesting hotel near the harbor and only a few blocks to the stores and restaurants. The hotel has a restaurant named the Hippopotamus and right off our balconies there it was, a very large Hipo! The hotel is quite different with a lot of modern and art deco on the walls along and interesting sculpture.

After getting into our room we immediately headed to the National Museum across the street. It has a very large (entire floor) dedicated to the social history of New Zealand. We were particularly interested in the Maori’s, the tribes were here in New Zealand when the British arrived. After a time, a treaty was signed between the Maori tribes and the English called the Treaty of Waitangi on February 6, 1840.  Below is a summary of that agreement, as you can see there may be some parallel’s between the Maori’s and the US Indians (section two:  We get everything).

We walked around the museum for sometime looking at the history until it got to the 60’s and we realized it could have been America. Off we went to find a place to catch an early dinner.

We found a pub with good beer and beef hamburgers.  Many New Zealand burgers seem to have breading in them, these did not.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel for a good night sleep to get ready for our next day of golf.

The next morning we headed out to play golf at Paraparmumu Beach Golf Club, north of Wellington on the beach. Unfortuanely it was raining but we still headed up to the golf course. It was just a little drizzle so off we went to the first tee. It was a true links course and fun to play.
The rain picked up and we were getting soaked when we decided it might be better to quit after 9 holes. We returned early back to the hotel with many wet cloths and golf equipment.  We took showers to warm up and spent a little time catching up on the blogs.

We all wanted some oriental food for dinner, being Sunday a lot of restaurants were not open.  The Concierge recommended Chows, just two blocks from the hotel.  We walked down the block Chows served asian fusion cuisine. We walked down the street looking for the restaurant and all of a sudden we saw the sign and took an old fashion elevator up 3 floors (like an elevator in Macy’s New York in the 50’s). We got to the 3rd floor and who would have guessed it was a large beautifully decorated restaurant. The waiter came over and explained it was like Tapas so we proceeded to order crispy chicken,  salt and pepper squid , vietnamese spring rolls, peking duck in lettuce, dumplings, 5 season chicken curry (John and Pete ate that) and 4 bowls of Jasmine Rice. It was wonderful,  every dish was excellent. To accompany our food we shared two containers of warm Sakai, YUMMMM.

Back to the hotel for a good night sleep, tomorrow we take the ferry to the south island.