Shopping

Yesterday we went to explore some of Wellington’s retail opportunities. Earlier this year, the first farmer’s market was set up in Hill Street, so we went along to that, and bought some fresh produce and cheese from the suppliers there. Maybe it was because we were quite late getting there, and raining, but it didn’t seem particularly busy. Perhaps there are more stalls, and more interest generally, in the summer.

After that, we strolled down Lambton Quay, which is one of the main thoroughfares of the city, then headed towards Courtenay Place for rather more prosaic shopping – some necessary bits and pieces for the flat. We don’t want to acquire too much stuff here, as all our kitchen equipment etc. will be arriving from the UK in (we hope) fairly short order. We also went shopping for our housewarming party, which we’re holding on Sunday. We’ve invited all the people we know in Wellington – admittedly not very many so far, but that will change in time.

In the evening, we ate stuffed squid and watched the All Blacks beat the Wallabies again 20-10 – a much closer matcher than last week’s, but increasing their unbeaten Bledisloe Cup run to 9 games, and securing the 2010 cup.

The Bledisloe Cup

Today’s exploration was down to the harbour, where the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa, is located. As Wellington’s, and indeed New Zealand’s, main museum, it is enormous and contains loads of interesting stuff. We managed to get through about half a floor’s worth of interesting artifacts before we started to suffer from museum fatigue, and retired to a harbourside bar, Mac’s Brewery http://www.macs.co.nz/home/ for a bit of lunch. I sampled the Mac’s Black beer, a dark beer but without the head you normally get on Guinness or similar. I suspect that I’ll be back to try all the other beers on offer – purely in the interests of research, you understand!

In the afternoon, we headed down to Cuba and Courtenay Place to explore further and familiarise ourselves with the area, as they will be just around the corner when we move back into our flat on The Terrace. Around the corner and down a bloody steep hill…which is all well and good when you’re going there, but somewhat daunting when you’re coming home. Ah well, the exercise will do us good.

The Bledisloe Cup

Or the Bledisloe Clup as I keep calling it, kicked off last night in Melbourne. An 8 o’clock kickoff meant 10pm here, so we stayed up to watch it. The All Blacks stuffed the Wallabies fairly comprehensively 49-28, continuing a run of 8 games unbeaten now. It was a good game, with lots of tries and open play. Quite frightening to watch, having seen England play in the last 6 Nations tournament – frankly I don’t think they’d stand a chance against an All Blacks (or indeed Wallabies) team playing like they did last night. The next match is on home turf in Christchurch, next Saturday.