So this is the mess we arrived to last night, and woke up to this morning hehe, courtesy of our two roommates in our hostel. Makes Kristina look like a neat-freak.

Today was our first of two days in Wellington, and we hit the streets for a day of aimless meandering.

Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand, ranked the 12th in the world in the 2010 Mercer Quality of Living Survey, and referred to by Lonely Planet as the "coolest little capital in the world". Despite the beautiful sunny day we got today, Welly is rather infamous for its weather. Gale-force winds wrecking your umbrella and hairdo, freezing rain pissing in sideways - Wellington sees plenty of it hehe. Despite the occasionally objectionable weather, Wellington is a brilliant city. The CBD is compact and vibrant, the city is all rather easy on the eyes and scattered around bushy hillsides encircling a magnificent harbour. However, Wellington also lies on a major fault line. What has happened in Christchurch over the last 18 months has long been expected to happen in Wellington. And, just like Christchurch, Welly has its fair share of old historic buildings such as that above-right, which are unlikely to survive a Christchurch-like bout of shaking.

The road above is Lambton Quay, the city's major business thoroughfare, running more or less parallel to the seafront which it once yes. In 1855, a huge earthquake hit Wellington and raised a huge swath of land along the waterfront which means Lambton Quay is now someway inland hehe. That should give you some idea of how earthquake-prone (and their severity) this city and this country is.

After a bit of wandering and shopping we called into New Zealand's seat of parliamentary power. I'm standing outside the unmissable Beehive, with Parliament House next door. The Beehive was constructed in the 1970s and was dogged by controversy. But, whether Wellingtonians love it or loathe it, the Beehive has become the architectural symbol of the city.

Round the corner from the Beehive we whipped into Archives New Zealand, the official guardian of New Zealand's heritage documents. Inside are gallery displays of significant national treasures, including the one we came to see - the original Treaty of Waitangi.

The treaty was first signed in the northern town of Waitangi on February 6, 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and various Maori chiefs establishing British sovereignty over New Zealand, and thus my country was born. However, the English and Maori versions of the Treaty differed significantly, so there is no consensus as to exactly what was agreed to and it has been a point of sometimes bitter contention ever since.

From there it was up one of Wellington's most famous attractions - this little red cable car, from Lambton Quay to the suburb of Kelburn.

At the top of the cable car is the Wellington Botanic Garden, an observatory, a cable car museum if that's your thing, and a lot of hillside properties that will hopefully fair a lot better than those in Christchurch when the big one hits.

Back in the city and making our way towards the waterfront.

Along the way we came across the Occupy Wellington protest hehe (more info here), and Kristina made friends with some of the bros.

Wellington's waterfront is a great spot (weather pending) to do bugger all. Meander, smash back a coffee, read in the sun, cycle and skate around in a menacing manner, have a protest, dive in the water - not sure if you're allowed to do that last one but we saw it all.

Our final stop of the day was the awesome Te Papa (New Zealand Museum). Its full name is Te Papa Tongarewa which loosely translates as "treasure box". There are six floors of exhibits here, and we only managed to conquer one of them in the hour we had before it closed, so we may head back tomorrow. Some of what we saw included a big and timely exhibition on earthquakes and other related natural disasters - very much the hot topic in this country just now.

This is Wellington's Cuba Street, "bars, boutiques and coffee shops in the heart of the city" and "edgy, groovy and sometimes too cool for school" says Lonely Planet.

As one of the most prominent streets in Welly it's a pretty bustling spot with heaps of buskers, and this dude on the right who is some sort of Celtic fortune teller. We all gotta earn a living somehow.

Cuba Street is one of the main nightlife hubs of the city with a myriad of bars and clubs.

Back down on the waterfront we found this festival of Polynesian music and dance acts, and there was quite a crowd to see the coconuts in actions. New Zealand has a large Polynesian population, especially as you venture north (too cold for them down south).

From there we wandered through Te Papa for a couple more hours before jumping in the car and driving (because there was no way we were walking up here) to the 196-metre summit of Mt. Victoria for an awesome 360-degree view of New Zealand's capital.

Wellington's CBD and waterfront, and the countless hillside suburbs off in the distance. We spent the night along Cuba Street, and tomorrow we're continuing north along the east coast of the North Island bound for Napier - another city that's no stranger to devastating earthquakes.

We left Wellington this morning amid reports of dismal weather ahead, but before we encountered rain we passed through here - Carterton. As well as having a lot of cows, lately it has also had a lot of attention. A couple weeks ago this was the site of a hot air balloon accident which made international headlines. 11 people were killed (two of them - a young couple - jumped to their death) when the balloon hit these power lines. More info here.

300-something kilometres and countless small country towns later (such as this one top-left), we made it here (top-right) - Napier on the east coast in Hawke's Bay. This hostel was the second of two we tried to check into, after we were rejected from the first hehe. Before I begin this story, I should probably mention for the benefit of those of you who don't blow all your money travelling the world that it is common for hostels to request identification for security reasons or whatever, and in some cases they even hang on to your identification for the duration of your stay.

So we walked in and, when asked, Kristina said she was from Texas and I said I was home-grown. To that we were told by the chicky at reception that I was required to produce a passport, but Kristina (the foreigner) need only produce a driver's license or something. When I asked "Can I not just show you my driver's license?" I was told "Nope, for New Zealander's I need to see your passport, and if you don't have one then I cannot check you in." Now this made zero sense to me. They would accept a foreigner's driver's license (not an internationally-recognised document) but wouldn't accept a local's driver's license (recognised throughout New Zealand). Furthermore, they require a local's passport, but a foreigner can flash any old piece of plastic. How bloody ridiculous! For starters not every local would even own a passport, and regardless how many of those who do would bring it for a trip in their own country?! The only reason I'm carrying mine is because New Zealand is but one part of a much larger trip, otherwise my passport sits in the drawer gathering dust.

Producing my passport is no problem but I'm the kind of person who just can't let broken logic go, and I was sure she had just gotten her wires crossed - surely it was foreign passports that were required and a New Zealand driver's license would suffice (in New Zealand!). So I continued to dig deeper, in a very non-confrontational manner I might add. I was told that it was a BBH rule (BBH is a chain of hostels throughout New Zealand) and told that I was getting very "defensive" and making her uncomfortable hahaha! I said "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to have a go at you. This just makes no sense so I'm simply asking the question." With that our uncomfortable receptionist turned and looked to her female friend leaning casually on a table behind her, who had been sitting there quietly the whole time (I got the distinct impression they were more than friends, if you know what I mean, but I'm all for that ;) Upon turning back she said "Ok, I'm not going to check you in, so you can both leave now." hahaha! I tell ya, "The customer is always right" just isn't the reality anymore. In this case the reality is that our uncomfortable little friend was simply a lesbian man-hater, and didn't appreciate being questioned by a bloke with a penis. Kristina agreed.

Nice day for a bit of cloud-bathing on the beach.

So then, Napier. It's small, it's cute, and I had a specific reason for wanting to come here. At 10:46am on February 3, 1931, Napier was all but completely wiped off the map by a catastrophic earthquake scoring a mammoth 7.9 on the Richter scale. Sound familiar? What followed was intense redevelopment in the popular style of the day - art deco. It was cheap, safe, and contemporary. And that way it has stayed to this day.

These are a couple of the better examples we found while wandering around. The big question on Christchurch lips right now is what's to become of our once-beautiful city, but while the earthquakes are ongoing (and not excepted to cease within the next decade or two - at least that's the latest news from the geologists) I doubt that's a question that will be answered anytime soon. I only hope the powers that be don't waste this opportunity to create something even better out of the ashes, and instead leave us with some tacky shit that'll be an eyesore thirty years from now.

So then, cool architecture, a nice park or two, the beach, lesbian man-haters - that's Napier in a nutshell. Seriously, the more time I spend outside of big cities, the more I want to thank my mother for raising me in one. With the greatest of respect, the people of these little podunk towns are just, different, you know? And it's by no means a New Zealand thing (just look at the US for example ;)

Back on the road again this morning, and another random wee town for lunch.

The further we venture north, and more of these I expect we'll find. This is a marae - a communal or sacred place which serves religious and social purposes in Polynesian societies. For the Maori people of New Zealand (our country's native people) the marae is a vital part of everyday life.

Destination for the day: Gisborne - birthplace of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa (a New Zealand megastar of the operatic world), awesome surf beaches (if that's your thing), and rainbows (if that's your thing). Unfortunately where there are rainbows there is rain, and we've had a bit of it. Gisborne is the first city on earth to see the sun each day (it's the closest city west of the International Date Line), and naturally this place completely packed out with folk on New Year's Eve of 1999 wanting to be the first on earth to see the first sunrise of the new millennium. As for me, I'm hoping to be the first person on earth to see the sunrise of January 24, 2012 hehe. Yup, I'm going to (try to) get up at ungodly-o'clock tomorrow morning, and hope that cloud will piss off overnight.

Well despite the sunny conditions here later in the morning, it was completely overcast at 6am so I didn't get to see that sunrise I was talking about yesterday, but oh well. Anyhow, for the next couple days we'll be following the road on the left there - the coastal State Highway 35 between Gisborne and Opotiki via the East Cape which is the easternmost point of New Zealand.

Sheep! Kristina has never seen so many hehe. 20 of these for every one person in New Zealand or something like that.

Our first stop was the tiny, sleepy, non-signposted Maori village of Whangara. Those of you who have seen the New Zealand film Whale Rider might recognise this as the location where it was filmed :) When it was released, this place was swamped with tourists who treated this beautiful marae and the private homes as if they were movies sets (hence there are no signs pointing here). However, you can still do the two-hour Whale Rider Tour, if you really want.

Stop number two was Talonga Bay with the 660-metre Tolaga Wharf - the longest in the Southern Hemisphere and yet dwarfed by the massive cliffs of the headland. The wharf was built in 1929 to load and unload goods from ships when this area was a major shipping hub, but nowadays the ships have moved on and the wharf is in dire need of some TLC - it's falling to bits! The locals are fundraising to preserve it.

After lunch, stop number three was another small Maori village called Waipiro Bay, this one also containing a stunning marae (but rather than the little fella on top riding a whale or whatever, this one just has a light coming out of his head hehe). Waipiro Bay was once a vibrant town complete with movie theatre, shops, hotels, a hospital etc., but the place is now just a ghost of its past. The same could be said for many of the little settlements around here once the shipping ports that supported them moved to the larger cities.

Middle of nowhere :) As you may have picked up, Maori life is at the forefront in the East Cape. Housed in close communities where everyone knows everyone, drawing much of their livelihoods off the sea and land - this area is something of an insight into what might have been had New Zealand not been colonised by the Brits.

Anyway, after a pretty slow day in the car we called it a night here in Hicks Bay, which has a real middle-of-nowhere feel to it. About 30km from here is the eastern-most point of New Zealand, which means it therefore sees the rising sun even earlier than Gisborne hehe, and the weather forecast is looking good so I may try my luck again and be the first to see that sunrise tomorrow ;)

At 4:30am this morning my alarm let rip. I smashed the snooze button, and started dreaming about fairies and unicorns and all those normal things people dream about. At 4:40am my alarm let rip again, and I dragged myself out of bed. After a 40-minute drive I arrived at 500 of the steepest steps known to man.

This is the East Cape Lighthouse which marks the eastern-most point of New Zealand. That being the case, it is the first place on earth to see the sunrise, given we are the first country west of the International Date Line. That fact makes this a popular spot for other idiots like me to get up at ungodly-o'clock in the morning to witness the sunrise. Unfortunately it was a little cloudy out and so we didn't actually get to see the sun come up, but it was a pretty awesome sight all the same.

Another glorious morning in rural New Zealand.

The first hour after sunrise and the last hour before sunset are known to us photographer types as the "golden hour" when the low sun gives everything a really nice golden hue, and is generally the best time of day for photography. So on the way back to bed I went exploring for a bit to find me some vistas.

We eventually left Hicks Bay around midday to continue our jaunt around the East Cape, following the coastal State Highway 35. Before long we entered the Bay of Plenty region - one of the sunniest in New Zealand and today was no exception. We'll be hanging around this area for the next several days. One of my favourite radio DJs back in the day hosted the drive time show (3-7pm) on one of our major national stations. Every week he would have one of his crew in a certain part of the country go into a major department store and hide a $100 note in a pair of women's underwear, completely unbeknown to the store staff hehe. The DJ would then announce to the nation the exact location of the department store, and within minutes there would be hundreds of people running in and raiding the women's underwear section looking for this $100 hahaha! At one point the targeted department store was somewhere in the Bay of Plenty, subsequently earning it the nickname "Bay of Panties". Good times ;)

Anyway, this is Christ Church Raukokore - built in 1894 and immaculately maintained.

Out back is a cute little cemetery. Spot the group of three headstones on the far left. They are three brothers who were killed in a car accident back in 1987, aged 19, 22, and 27 - not very nice.

We stopped for lunch at this hillside macadamia farm with the sweet view, and gorged ourselves on their homemade ice cream packed with macadamia nuts - yummy.

On the way to our final destination we stopped in at Whakatane (pronounced fah-ka-tar-nay). This place was always cause for a giggle as a kid whenever I would hear news reporters saying the "Fuck" in Whakatane hehe. Anyway, this place is officially the sunniest city in New Zealand.

Among various other things of interest in Fuckatane is this waterfall...

...and this short cave which has some ancient and profound Maori myth associated with it, although nowadays I'd say people just go and have sex in there. From here it was a further hour in the car to our final destination for the day - Rotorua. More on that tomorrow, after I've slept in.