Fortunately the next morning dawned bright and sunny, and so we set off for the capital, full of excitement about being back in an urban centre after 2 weeks of country living. As the first stop in the north, this also meant the beginning of uncharted territory for James, whose last trip to New Zealand was confined to the snowboarding meccas of the south.

We began with a tour of Te Papa, New Zealand's premier museum, and home of all things Maori (translated, “te papa” means “our place”). It was absolutely enormous, with loads of different exhibits organised seemingly haphazardly. As a result, we were a little bewildered as to where to begin, especially as we refused to resort to using a map – on principle, I might add. Entrance to the museum was free, but you then had to pay the equivalent of an entrance fee to buy a map of the place, and to go on a guided tour. Very cheeky. Eventually we found our way to the things we wanted to see, and enjoyed wandering around life-size models of marae (Maori meeting houses), parekhas (food storage huts) and wakas (war canoes). From the exhibit about early English settlers, we learned that to pass the time on the 5 week sailing voyage between England and New Zealand, common pastimes included “having affairs, and placing bets on dessert-eating competitions between fellow passengers.” Sounds awesome.

Our 'museum stamina' appears to have gone down, rather than up on this trip, and so after about an hour and a half we'd had enough. Full of good intentions to return again later, we left, and wandered into town. We walked the length of Cuba Street, home of edgy vintage shops and cool cafes, and also a water feature made up of trowels which literally had James riveted for about 10 minutes. I had to pull him away. We also enjoyed a trip in the cable car to the top of the hill, which gave great views over the city, and a walk down through the Botanical Gardens. The first curator of the gardens used to live on site, and he and his wife met for lunch everyday on the same bench, with sandwiches she'd prepare each morning.

Now although it is the capital of NZ, it only has a population of some 500,000 people, and so is one of the smallest capitals we've ever been to. Really it's more like a town. A nice town, but a town nevertheless. By about 5pm (including a 2 hour stop at the hospital to get my stitches removed) we were done, and with a long drive to Napier ahead of us, we decided to start that evening (sorry, Te Papa). As we were leaving, the heavens opened, and we drove for a couple of hours along mountain roads through driving rain. It was too far to Napier in those conditions. Instead we made it as far as Masterton, 'famous' in certain circles for an annual 3-day sheep-shearing competition. Nuff said.