Exquisite New Zealand - Part 3

First of all, wishing you all Eid Mubarak! "Taqabbal Allahu minna wa minkum" May Allah accept (the good deeds) from me and you.

(con't)
We reached Wellington at night; already called Capital View Motel Inn (NZD 145/night) that we were being slightly late- they open until 9 p.m. and if we reached after 9, they’d left the key for us. Had Maggie for dinner and slept the night off.

Wellington

Our hotel was just walking distance from Cuba Street, where the Bucket Fountain is located at. Still early in the morning hence many shops weren’t opened yet, we made our way down to Wellington waterfront and the Queens Wharf, ending up at the Cable Car station.

The plan was to take the Cable Car up the hill through the colourfully led tunnels and walk down the downhill path of the Botanic Garden back to the city. ( http://www.wellingtoncablecar.co.nz/English/What-To-Do.html#AttractionsMap )

But then it started to rain, light drizzle initially and then heavy rain as we were walking back to the city. 'GoogleMapped' a place to eat and we ended up having kebab at Abrakebabra, before heading back to our hotel to dry up. It was raining the rest of the day so we ended up sleeping. If the weather was sunny, we would have walk around and went for museum visits.

"We are going to do a lot of walking today! Rawr!"

Cuba Street

The Bucket Fountain

That's one BIG umbrella!

Cuba St

'Studying'..... the map XD

And still couldn't find our ways! lol

Reached the botanical garden!

But it started to drizzle

In the memory of Basil the cat

At Duck Pond

One of the entrance

At Lady Norwood Rose Garden

Purple roses!!!

Parliament House

You can also choose the Wellington Movie Tours, visiting the sites of LOTR movie sites ( http://www.wellingtonnz.com/discover/things-to-do/sights-activities/wellington-movie-tours/#Wellington ) but we didn’t have time for that.

At night, we had dinner at Cinta Malaysia Kitchen on Manners St then we drove to Mt Victoria lookout.

Glowworm Cave, Waitomo

The next morning we drove back to Auckland, which was supposed to take roughly about 5 hours. However the journey was longer as we made two stops for breakfast, then toilet break and stopped for a bit to get clearer picture of Mt Ruapehu ( http://www.mtruapehu.com/ )

Zeti called this (Mt Ruapehu) Mount Doom XD

We dropped by Waitomo Glowworm Cave for their guided tour and had an amazing view from inside the cave, it was as though you are looking at clear thousand stars at night while riding a boat. Except those were actually glowworms.... in a cave.

Cameras are not allowed but you can buy their souvenir book and you’ll be given hardcopy photos as well as softcopy to be downloaded from their website ( http://www.waitomo.com/Waitomo-Glowworm-Caves/Pages/default.aspx ) within 3 months. Glowworm entrance is NZD 49 per person.

We were wondering why we hadn’t seen any alpacas and when I just had an idea of googling the places, we already went passed by them *headdesk*

So this is really, just a reference in the future:

1. Ataahua Alpacas & Farmstay,  297 Horsham Downs Rd, Rototuna North, Hamilton 3281, New Zealand 
2. Nevalea Alpacas,  5446 SH 4, Ongarue 3996, New Zealand 

Reached Auckland city at night and finally checked in at Waldorf St. Martin Apartments (total of RM 883 for 2 nights)

Next: City of Auckland. And a lil bits and tips about food and souvenirs.

For our brothers in Durban 
For our sisters in Darfur 
Show me what we’re going to do 
Are we just going to sit there? 
Nice and cosy on our armchairs 
Will we not even make a prayer?

You might ask yourself 

Why should I help these people? 

They’ll tell you why 

We’re not so different from you 

We have dreams just like you 

But they were buried with the bodies of our loved ones 

[Make A Prayer, Sami Yusuf]