Windy Welly

I forgot to mention that I had an opportunity to use sauna in my previous hostel at Taupo. Well, it wasn't exactly the kind of sauna we have in Finland since this one was a dry one so you couldn't pour any water on the rocks. After more than half a year without sauna this was still better than nothing.

I didn't manage to do the Tongariro crossing walk since the weather was bad at the mountains but I spent the last day in Taupo mountain biking on really nice tracks which went next to beautiful rapids and waterfalls.

After beautiful bus trip (which went next to mt. Doom in LOTR) I'm here in Wellington which is also called Windy Welly because it's really windy here. Yesterday I accidentally met two british girls here in YHA hostel. I had met them before in Rotorua and then again in Taupo. It seems that I'm gonna meet same people again and again since they're travelling the same route to South than I am. Well we ended up in Irish bar drinking guinness and listening to live band. I enjoyed that cultural experience very much. I also learnt that some English put a hint of black currant cordial into their guinness, weird.

Today I went to see the Te Papa("our place") museum here. It has 6 floors and many different exhibitions including the lord of the rings exhibition. The latter was really good including all the gear, armor, weapons, monsters, art + misc stuff about the movie. I think it was my longest stay in museum ever since I spent there around 5 hours.

Tomorrow I'm taking a ferry to South island and a bus from Picton to Nelson where I'm probably gonna meet these other travellers again. On Saturday my plan is to head towards Marahau which is just next to Abel Tasman national park and a great base camp to do some sea kayaking and walking.