Rainy day drive to Wellington

We had really wanted to go to hike the Tongariro Alpine Crossing but unfortunately it was pouring rain. Tongariro Crossing is said to be the best one day walk in the country. It takes you up the mountains into a beautiful flatland, past a red volcano crater and beautiful lakes and some of the best alpine scenery in the world. The 8 hour trek also includes a trip up Mt. Ngaurohoe which is the mountain that was used as "Mt. Doom" in Lord of the Rings. Sadly we had to scrap this entire plan because we had read that is was a miserable experience in bad weather. And raining was a complete understatement for what was happening outside. We decided to just get our six hour drive to Wellington out of the way since we couldn't do anything anyways.

On our way out of town, we stopped at the Hot/Cold pools to check out where we had been the night before. They really didn't look as bad as I was expecting them to, although the signs around did confirm the danger of amoebic meningitis, lol.

The rain really added an element of danger to our drive as there were often times when the rain was coming down so hard that the windshield wipers weren't moving fast enough to give you a clear view or another car would splash water on your windshield rendering you blind for a few seconds. The New Zealanders were obviously used to this weather and were flying down the road at top speeds but we tried to take it a little bit easy since we were sure they had put the worst tires possible on our shitty little car.

We stopped for lunch in some random town and from our table at Subway, we were able to steal internet from the public library across the street. We got a few things done and were able to Skype our family back home before getting back on the road. Luckily, we had made reservations for a place already because we didn't get into town until 6:00pm and the traffic was so horrendous that we didn't reach the hotel until after 7:00pm. We we staying at the YHA Wellington. The YHA's are a chain of hostels in NZ and Australia that are huge complexes, built for probably a hundred youths. They are pretty well set up with multiple kitchens, internet, etc which is nice but not a very conducive set up for meeting other people. We checked in and got our room assignment in a 6-bed girls dorm. We would have to move to a 4-bed the following night because our room was booked but that was ok, as long as its in the same hostel it's pretty easy to do though a little annoying.

We had to park our car down along the beach since there was no parking at the hostel and were able to purchase a pass for $7.50. Luckily since we had gotten there so late, we were able to buy a pass to cover the following day (Friday) and then Saturday was free, so our whole 3 day stay would only cost $7.50 for parking.

We figured we should find a restaurant that was still open since it appeared everything in the area was already closed. We did some quick research online and found "Phoenician Falafel", which was supposed to have cheap, good Mediterranean food. It was only a block away, so we donned our rain gear and ran there through the downpour. When we arrived, the door said they were open until 11:00pm and it was only 9:00pm so we thought we had plenty of time. When we ordered, the lady asked if we wanted it for take away and we said no, that we would eat there. She then got super pissed off and said that they were closing and we'd have to take it to go. We pointed out that they were supposed to be open for another two hours but she said since it was slow, they were planning to just close early. We were about to leave when she said we could stay and eat. Not wanting to run around in the rain, we both ordered. The lady basically hovered above us until we finished and then told us to get out. She was so unbelievably rude! We both decided we were going to give them a bad Trip Advisor review later on, which is the only form of vengeance we have against bad service, lol.

 

Posted with Blogsy