Flight of the Conchords!!

So greetings from the capital of New Zealand. We have been here in Wellington for 5 days now. Wellington is a pretty cool little city. It reminds me of a sort of cross between Vancouver and San Francisco. The city is in a huge natural harbour surrounded by green mountains (which is why it reminds me of Vancouver). The harbour front and CBD (central business district – They are all called CBD’s here instead of Downtown) are all on land reclaimed from the sea so relatively flat and boring but the rest of the city is on steep hills. The roads and houses all seem impossibly perched on hills, all looking like they are about to slide away into the sea (which reminds me of San Fran). The city is small and easy to get around in. The shopping here is way better than Auckland too as everything is so centrally located as opposed to Aucklands massive urban sprawl. There seems to be a more vibrant ‘alternative’ culture here. We strolled down Cuba Street and I was amazed at how many indie record and hippy chick type stores there were. I liked it a lot. There were loads of skater types and tons of tattoo parlours but I managed to dissuade myself from getting inked, this time. I also noticed Wellington has a lot of attractive people here. It’s kinda like Raglan (that cool surf town we went to a few weeks back) but on grander scale. Either that or my hormones are playing havoc because the sun is out! We have been staying outside the city in a little town called Seaview near Hutt city. The campsite is fairly ordinary except for the excessive amount of ducks that seem to wander around Biff without a care in the world. Not too much to say about the locals except I have never seen so many mullet hair cuts! It’s like a damn Billy Ray Cyrus convention! I guess that says a lot really (plays intro to duelling banjos on his guitar).

I only have a few problems with Wellington. It seems that graffiti is a popular thing here. I don’t really mind generally when it is done properly but hate when things are just tagged with a small scrawl which is what I have seen a lot of. Whereas Auckland seemed so clean and business like, Wellington seems a little grungy and alternative, but hey, that’s one of the reasons I think I prefer it.

They have big yellow buses here that run from electric overhead cables. Now, I’m sure that is better for the environment but it obscures everything. It’s not like in Chicago where the overhead railway system seems to add to the citys character without obscuring the sheer beauty of the place. Here, unsightly electric cables are everywhere, which reminds me of Japan. It’s a shame but I guess I should be happy that they are concerned more with the environment and providing a future for ensuing generations, blah blah blah.

I got to Wellington with only one thing on my mind to begin with. When we were in New Plymouth a few weeks ago, we noticed in a local paper that there was a charity fundraising tennis event in Wellington and that the Flight of the Conchords were going to be involved in it. For those of you not familiar with the Conchords, they are a New Zealand comedy duo that plays folk music. Now, that doesn’t sound very funny but these guys have won the prestigious Perrier award at the Edinburgh comedy festival, had a successful show on BBC radio, have a hit HBO TV series in the states and are comedy geniuses in my eyes. I first encountered them by accident on my air NZ flight back to the UK from LA. I watched the first episode and laughed my arse off. When we got settled at home BBC3 decided to show that first series, which I became a big fan of. They are bloody huge here as you can imagine. Well, when we got to Wellington we found out where the tennis club was that the event was taking place in and I dragged Kate up this huge hill to see if there were any tickets for sale. The guy there told us that there weren’t as it was only a fun event so just rock up when it started. We then went back down the huge hill and got a bit of lunch before traipsing back up the huge hill to watch the tennis.

It was awesome! We overheard what court the Conchords were going to be on and got ourselves settled in the stands. Oddly, there weren’t a lot of spectators but there were a few film crews. Then before we knew it there they were just a few feet from us. I have never really been star struck before so just sat there giggling and taking pictures. We sat and watched them play tennis with these great big comedy racquets laughing at how ridiculous it all was. I got some great pictures and before we knew it the game was over and the Conchords were well and truly whooped by two dudes wearing sombreros. I resisted the urge to have a picture with them as I didn’t want to appear needy or like Mel (the Conchords only fan and stalker from their TV show). Kate was feeling the effects of sitting out in direct sunlight for an hour so we decided to call it a day. I skipped out of the tennis club on a high, probably annoying Kate with my hyperactivity.

The next day I was still in awe from the previous days exploits. We headed back into the city to do the more touristy things that Wellington offers. We also heard that there was a dragon boat festival at Queens quay so we headed over and caught one of the races. I hadn’t realised that you don’t have to be slim or even fit to be in a dragon boat crew. There were quite a few chunky rowers. Along with everything dragon boat related possible there was some stalls set up selling food and oddly a stage with little kids performing Irish dancing to ‘diddly diddly’ music – sort of like a poor mans version of Riverdance. Diet Riverdance. We then wandered over to the old red cable car for a ride up one of the many steep hills to the botanical gardens. We stopped for a few photos then walked all the way back down to the harbourside to visit Te Papa, which is a big museum. Te Papa means "our place" in Maori and it was great wandering around the free exhibits outlining the history of NZ and the Maori culture.

The next few days were very much governed by the drastic change in the weather. It has turned proper shit! Wind, rain and a big drop in temperature have meant we have become a little less motivated to be venturing out. We did go to a see a seal colony at Sinclairs head though. We drove Biff down to a remote beach outside of the city, parked up then walked 8km along wind swept beaches to see the seals. It wasn’t a total disaster because we needed the exercise but we only saw 6 seals, and one of them was dead! Apparently, it’s not the right season for the seals to be there but the ones we saw, especially the dead one, let you get pretty close to them before they started getting a bit vexed.

The rest of the time we’ve been here has been spent in Biff reading Stephenie Meyer books, watching DVDs or going on little shopping trips to try various creams and lotions to combat my eczema, which has suddenly reappeared. I’m glad that we cross to the south island tomorrow. I just hope the weather sorts itself a bit first. The Cook strait (the piece of water between the two islands) is notoriously rough at the best of times as the Abel Tasman sea collides with the mighty pacific, but I’m not sure even an old salty seadog such as myself will be able to keep his lunch down if the waves get up. Hmmm, maybe I’ll skip eating. I’ll keep you informed on how we get on. Next stop, Picton.

Peace

D

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