It was that time of the week again when we don our green and white vests for a mad dash around a local park; this time it was Palmerston North it what would be our final parkrun of our round the world tour (parkrun hasn’t quite reached Sri Lanka yet!). On a flat riverside course and egged on by a few competitive New Zealanders, Gareth clocked his fastest time of the trip leaving Claire for dust, and thereby winning our round the world series by 4 wins to 2.
For once our day’s schedule was pretty empty (Claire must have missed a page in the diary) so we consulted the guide book and picked out a couple of stops on our journey to Wellington. The first of these took us on a detour in the opposite direction, to Manawatu Gorge (home of New Zealand’s largest windfarm). On our way we pass what must have been the largest group of bikers anywhere in the world. It must have taken over 5 minutes to pass them all. Quite an amazing site!
From the Gorge car park we completed the Tawa Loop walk which heads uphill through native bush to a sculpture of Whatonga, one of three warrior Chiefs to lead the Maori across the Pacific Ocean to settle New Zealand. Overall the walk was pretty but we were disappointed not to get more of a view across the gorge (the best view was probably from right next to the car park!)
A picnic lunch later and we were on our way south west, to the coastal road to Wellington. We made an afternoon stop at Queen Elizabeth Park for a slightly chilly walk along the beach before heading on to Wellington. We’d planned to spend the evening in Wellington but hit a stumbling block – on Saturday nights the campervan site is closed in preparation for the Sunday morning market! After 90 minutes of failing to find any freedom or paid camping spots in the city we resorted to heading 15km outside of town. Learning point – Wellington and campervans don’t mix on a Saturday.
The next morning we avoided further parking nightmares by taking the bus into Wellington. Along with the Rugby in Japan, our round the world trip had been designed to fit in the England cricket tour to New Zealand. Today we would be seeing our first of two Twenty20 matches against the Black Caps. Amazingly, even Claire was looking forward to the match – although that had less to do with the cricket than the opportunity to have a few drinks with our friend Jade, an escapee Brit!
After lunch at the waterfront we headed to the Westpac stadium where Gareth had managed to get us front row seats for the game. The stadium was quite a large one and was no where near reaching capacity (although Jade and her friend Ash told us that it is even more empty for Football games). We got a few stars come to field near us, including Jonny Bairstow, Jimmy Neesham, Colin Munro and James Vince (who dropped two of the three sitters that England missed on the day). Unfortunately England couldn’t quite chase down the New Zealand total, but the game was pretty close until the last five overs. One highlight was Dawid Malan hitting an absolutely massive six, which went out over the roof of the stadium, and Chris Jordan had a good cameo at the end too (hitting 3 sixes of his own).
We headed home via the Sprig and Fern pub and the Botanical Gardens, which really are worth a visit – although probably not best appreciated after sitting in the sun drinking beer all afternoon. We got a relatively early night in ahead of our ferry to the South Island the next morning.
Claire and Gareth go travelling! 