wet weather on the winding woads to wellington

like my alliteration? I was planning this title during our drive today and meant to say "wet weather on the winding roads to wellington," but what actually came out was the title above...guess alliteration just takes over sometimes!

We woke up this morning to a gorgeous sunrise in Napier (that makes it sound like we were really on top of things and up early, but it was 7:30). We went for a run on the waterfront and then to the gym across the street from the hotel for some extra workout. I didn't want to, but I remembered Barney telling us not to be lazy, so I did it. Mari was actually able to run with a taped up foot, so that was exciting!

After our workout, we went back to the hotel and ate a quick breakfast (yet another cereal and yogurt day) and then headed off on the drive from Napier to Wellington. We were following the wine trail and had plans to stop at a couple wineries along the way. We were sad to drive away from the sunshine in Napier...as soon as we got out of town, the cloud cover and wind started up and in the afternoon, rain came as well. It made the drive take a little longer and we only made it to two wineries before they closed, but we enjoyed the first one a lot and ended up buying two bottles. (one for our hosts in Wellington!)

We drove into Wellington around 5:30 and met with Mel and Bryce (friends of Ruth and Keira). It's so nice to have a "home" to stay at for tonight with excellent hosts. We drove down into the city for dinner at a Mexican restaurant...passionfruit margaritas!! After dinner Mel took us to her favorite gelato place. We are STUFFED now! We had a great time and really enjoyed chatting about our travels and showing off some trip pictures.

We're going to do some exploring in Wellington tomorrow before taking the ferry to South Island. Looking forward to the beautiful scenery, but not the drop in temperature. We're already wearing most of our layers...today we both have a tank top, a tshirt, and a long sleeve shirt on (in addition to our fleeces and sometimes our rain jackets). The long underwear haven't made an appearance yet, but I imagine it's only a matter of a couple days. We've been hunting for something cheap to add to our wardrobe...a jacket, vest or sweatshirt, but have been failing so far.

Wish we could put up some pictures, but somewhere between Chiang Mai and Auckland, we seem to have misplaced our USB card reader. :( We'll have to share the remaining pics from home.

Time to say goodnight! Although we know we should get up and run in the morning, we're lying in bed right now listening to the wind and rain and thinking that sleeping in sounds a whole lot better. Maybe the weather will clear for an afternoon hike??

miss you!