From north to south

10am 29th October

Most annoyed! After spending a good couple of hours last night trying to hack the local wifi access point, I failed. I was getting somewhere when the thing went dead on me. At reception they told me it was broken when we arrived last night, but when I checked it was up and seemingly working. The technology was shocking; some crap little php scripts and some trivial paypal type support (which they had commented out, crudely). Sadly I wasn’t able to get past it before it stopped working. If I thought the system was more sophisticated than it clearly was then I’d say it had blocked my MAC address as it detected me hacking away at it. But more realistically I’d say the antenna’s blown down in the appallingly windy and rainy conditions out there. That was the reason it was broken in the first place, according to the chap at reception anyway.

This morning we booked our ferry to the south island. We’re booked on the 6:15pm one, and I hope the weather improves or else we’re going to be as sick as dogs the whole way. All night the camper van was rocking about in the wind and we were treated to the staccato symphony of driving rain.

At least this means we get a proper day in Wellington. We’re going to go to the Te Papa Museum, which is the national museum including all sorts of Maori artifacts. It’s in the dry indoors too which is a bonus!

10pm 29th October

Safely ensconced in our new south island camp site, we’ve just opened a bottle of wine. Our crossing of the Cook Strait was remarkably calm and easy, in marked contrast to the Biblical storm that was raging in Wellington all day. As the weather was so bad we spent all day in a carefree daze wandering around the fascinating New Zealand national museum, Te Papa. A very interesting place to visit, it has attractions ranging from displays of New Zealand’s unique geographical processes to Maori art. Indeed there’s a whole wing devoted to Maori culture, and another to the cultures of the European settlers, and yet another to their fusion in New Zealand. Altogether a good day’s worth of museuming to be had there. Which was just as well as we really needed a place out of the howling gales and lashing rain!

Now, with our wine in hand (a freebie white wine bottle from the camper van rental place) we’re planning our time here in the south island. Our calculations work out us as having 15 clear days remaining in New Zealand, more than we’d hoped for in the south island which by all accounts is the more fascinating island. I currently remain sceptical; the north island was so fantastic I can’t yet conceive of a way the south could be better. I intend to find out though!

I finally have some net access again too — this camp site has the same crap system as the one I tried to hack last night, only this time the reception’s open and I’ve handed over my NZ$5 to get 30 minutes of access.

Filed under: New Zealand Trip
Posted at 09:10:18 GMT on 29th October 2006.

About Matt Godbolt

Matt Godbolt is a C++ developer working in Chicago for Aquatic. Follow him on Mastodon.