Rotorua to Wellington

Thursday 16 September

Not a lot to report today, it was a long travelling day with only one stop of interest, at the Southland Car Museum.  This was a good place to have a look at, with a very large collection of cars ranging from the very very old up to the 1970s.  There were also some motorbikes, and I think they have my mother’s old Singer treadle sewing machine, or at least its twin.

We are now in Wellington for a 2 night stay.  We have a free afternoon tomorrow and we’re both looking forward to a bit of time to spend doing our own thing. 

We have a change of hotel in Christchurch, due to the earthquake.  Our original hotel suffered some damage to its foundations and so we are being upgraded to the Millenium Hotel, which sounds rather good.  We cross to the South Island on Saturday by ferry, and are supposed to travel to Christchurch by train.  However, the railway has been closed due to landslips on the track.  It is expected to open tomorrow so we should be all right, but if it’s not open we’ll go by coach.  Our luggage goes across on the ferry in a truck, and is loaded onto our coach which then travels down to meet us in Christchurch.  If the railway is out of action, we will join our luggage on the coach.

I thought today that the North Island is really one large dairy farm, with some forestry (mostly radiata pine) for a bit of a change.  There are also sheep and some beef cattle, but definitely mainly dairy.