I've made it to New Zealand and am now in Wellington. There is only one word to describe it here - wet.

My flight out of Sydney was delayed considerably so despite getting up at 5:30am I only got to my hotel here at 4:30pm. Plus I've managed to pick the day before what the locals refer to as 'football', but which is in fact Rugby (poor uneducated colonials), is played here so most of the cheap hotels and hostels are all booked. Managed to wangle a deal and will get up early to take a ride on the cable car (provided it's not raining again) before jumping on the ferry to South Island where I'm going to hire a car and drive around for 5 days. Hoping to reach a place called Kaikoura by tomorrow night so that I can see some whales (or failing that, seals) on Saturday. No photos as of yet because the humidity would've destroyed my camera.

Had a small drama at Wellington airport (and I take back everything I said about aussie customs officers - New Zealand ones were trained by the Stasi) where they're very touchy about biodiversity and no food or animal or plant products are allowed in (they claim because their native species such as the Kiwi are being made extinct by introduced species but I reckon most of them just drowned during a normal rain shower). I'd bought some tree seeds at Sydney botanical gardens and only realised at the last moment (failure to declare is anything up to $100,000 fine and 5 years in jail) and managed to change by immigration form in time. It turns out after a proper study of their computer systems that the seeds I bought are already native here anyway (like I'd know that - I was shitting myself!) so they didn't need destroying.

Ho hum, anyway, a good night's sleep is on the cards then I need to brave a 3 hour ferry trip across the placid Cook straight. I hate boats!