Wellington the other weekend

So, we went to Wellington a couple of weekends ago, and I’ve not got round to blogging about it until now.  It was an absolutely vintage Wellington weekend – day one, the weather was perfect, the entertainment was plentiful and free, and we all had an amazing time.  Day two, it was cold and windy and we scampered onto the plane and back to Auckland post haste.

We went to Wellington on some cheap and cheerful airfares, and co-incidentally the International Arts Festival started the same weekend.  The Dragon Boating competition was also on, there was a lot of hype down at the waterfront for some rugby game being held in Wellington, and the Fringe Festival was on too.

The girls got to bounce around on a bouncy castle rugby field (see pic below), we watched boat races, saw a man dancing with a digger, and watched a man juggling fire and sharp knives.  We visited Te Papa for the girls’ regular fix of all the brilliant activities there that they love, and I went to the Pompeii exhibition.   It was fascinating and sort of made up for the fact that when we went to Pompeii we didn’t visit the museums in Naples that have all the treasures that have been taken out of Pompeii.  And a 3D recreation of the eruption, which was pretty cool.

That night we piled into One Red Dog for dinner, and two out of three girls spent more time under the table than at it, but it got them through so that was fine.  One Red Dog is a Wellington institution and I’ve never had a bad time there.  It was wonderful to have loads of family members in town and we had a really lovely day.

The next day we had landlord business to attend to, so I took the girls to the Botanic Gardens for a play.  I wore a skirt, and remembered why I never wore a skirt in Wellington.  Windy!  I see London I see France I see Emma’s underpants!  The girls got me running around the Roctopus, and another girl came along and joined in too, so I got a good workout.  We popped in to visit the old house, which is still looking in pretty good nick, and then it was time to head off to the airport, where we caught up with some more family members.  A fantastic weekend all around, I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for some more cheap airfares.