March 8 - Plimmerton, near Wellington

We drove down from New Plymouth to Plimmerton - beautiful blue sky day! We took the direct route south, as we were advised that the coastal "surf highway" doesn't actually see much water, and we did not have enough time to divert to the truly coastal roads. We booked the ferry for March 9 (pre-booking is substantially cheaper) so we have a schedule for the next 2 days.

We stopped for Eric to get photos of Mount Egmont (Maori name Tamaki, I think, may correct later!). It had just had snowfall atop, and was using its own personal clouds to hide behind.

Nice rolling scenery - we stopped at a small town and ate the rest of our fab pizza for lunch with two "flat white" coffees from the Red Dog Cafe, and a piece of their carrot cake. As a digression, the coffee nomenclature differs from ours. Short black is espresso. Long black is espresso with more water, Americano in Starbucks lingo. Flat white is pressure brewed coffee with hot milk, delicious, and, I am assured, pretty much the same as a latte, although I've seen both on one menu.

The GPS is functioning well, now that we have learned to check what route it wants to take us - it's very good for the small streets that don't show up on the map we have.

The hostel in Plimmerton is the nicest yet - Moana Lodge. It is on the seafront of a small village that is part of Wellington's commuter-shed, though you wouldn't know it. We walked the seafront, and had fish and chips at the local chippie. Extremely good. They also had news articles - chosen best fish and chips on at least two occasions for the whole Wellington area. I can believe it.

Our host did the rounds after dinner, and saw Eric's star book. He suggested a route to an area out of street light range. After a couple of false starts we found the path, not quite 45 degrees up, but not far off it! We parked before the final stretch and walked the last bit, puffing. We found the southern cross, definitely, and Alpha Centauri (the brightest of the pointers to the Southern Cross). Orion was there, upside down. We saw the Coal Sack - an area of darkness by the Southern Cross. Also the Clouds of Magellan - fainter bright areas first noted in Magellan's logs from his circumnavigation. A late night, but accomplishing one of the things that we wanted to do on this trip!

Tomorrow, on to Wellington and the ferry. We have just realized that we are not going to get to see everything on this trip - or rather, the everything that we had thought realistic - and will have to prune. Sad, but hopefully there will be another trip here in our future.