Day 21 - Thu 1 Nov

I am van

Van I am

Last day of the campervan and campsites. It's definitely a different lifestyle, with quite a community of people. It's interesting to observe that you hardly see any Americans in campervans .. we've met mostly Germans, Dutch, Aussies and Kiwis. In fact, the only time we can remember meeting Americans on this trip was on the more highly organised tours like the Hangi in Rotorua, and in the occasional restaurant. We'll miss our campervan which has been faithful and reliable, though I am looking forward to sleeping on a real bed again!

Our major issue today was dealing with wind on the roads. We thought it was windy driving yesterday, but today is much stronger. I don't know how windy it was, but "bloody windy" hardly seems to do it justice. These vans are about as aerodynamic as a brick outhouse, so you feel every gust. It was a real struggle staying in lane, particularly as large trucks passed by in the other direction.

So we swerved and swayed our way south west down SH 56 through Longburn, Tiakitahuna, and Opiki before turning onto SH 57 at Makerua. Then as we passed through Shannon, we saw a sign for "Owlcatraz". What's Owlcatraz? We drove in to check it out. It turns out to be a tourist and educational park where the staff lead tours through acres of bushland, to their specially built owl enclosure maintained in darkness during the day to allow viewing of the owls, including Owl Capone, Owle MacPherson and Owlvis Presley. They also have a pig, a pair of endangered North Island Weka, a couple of deer and Big Red, the world's largest cattle beast. Add to this a set of glowworm caves, free donkey rides for the kiddies, and free tea and coffee and you have the full Owlcatraz package. Unfortunately we were in too much of a hurry to spend the two hours or so they suggested, so we drove on. The last stage of our journey took us down the West coast past crashing waves through gusts of sea spray and finally around Wellington Harbour and into Wellington.

We found navigation around Wellington tricky, with lots of very narrow streets with cars parked all over the place, and drivers stopping in the middle of the road for no reason. We circled around a few times past the few B&B's mentioned in the Lonely Planet but either didn't like the look of them, or couldn't get a parking spot anywhere nearby. So we went instead to the Information Centre. They were able to suggest a better B&B that turned out to be high on a hill in the suburb of Brooklyn (just behind Central Park).

After unloading our gear into our room, dreading the thought of trying to get it back into our cases tomorrow, we drove back out to Paremata (yes, that's how they spell it here) about 30 minutes out of town to return the van. Bye bye campervan. Caught the train back into town and wandered around filling in time until dinner. Spent a good hour or so in Espressoholic cafe, where Cameron proved that it's been way too long since he played a pinball machine!

Wandered around the main restaurant and cafe strips, Manners Mall and Courtney Place to decide where to dine. After a couple of laps and much consideration, we settled on Nicolino's, a small, cute, but busy Italian restaurant with homemade photocopy menus -- one of those places that you know is going to serve good quality food. They did not disappoint. We also enjoyed sitting on a communal table and ended up having some lively discussions for quite a while with Tom and Lily from Canada. Tom writes, shoots and produces bird documentaries for Discovery Channel and is in New Zealand recording six pieces for a regular science and technology show in Canada and the US.