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Up about 8:00 or so, sowered, breakfast (bacon and eggs, toast), then grabbed umbrella (it was raining this morning), and walked downtown, stopped at the visitors centre and grabbed some maps on the walking trails in town, and stopped into a few bookstores. Things were looking bleak, but I finally found book 3 of the trilogy I'm reading. Dymocks only had one copy left, so I grabbed it! As I was walking around, bought some cookies from Mrs. Higgins Oven Fresh Cookies (Kiwi's love their baked goods...), 5 for $5, then walked back to the hostel about 11:30. By this time, it stopped raining.

Called Strait Shipping to book the ferry from Wellington to Picton for Sunday. $150.00; $110 for the car, $40 for me. Cheaper than the regular ferry service. Strait started their passenger ferry service only in Dec., 2002.

Shortly after noon, walked to internet for 1.5 or 2 hours, then back to the hostel. Dropped off journal, picked up camera and walked back downtown and visited Te Papa, the National Museum. It's free and it's amazing. It encompasses a science and nature centre, culture, and artsy-fartsy stuff on 5 huge levels. Of course, the best part was the science and nature floor, all about NZ's environment (volcanoes, earthquakes, etc.), flora and fauna. Very impressive. Stayed there longer than I anticipated, until about 5:45, then walked back to the hostel and made supper (grilled cheese sandwiches).

Opened up "The Battle of Evernight", the book I bought, and guess what? My copy has actually been signed by the author, Cecilia Dart-Thornton.

As I was walking around today, the city employees were planting flowers in the flower beds. Summer's here!!!

About 6:45, went for a walk downtown, lots happening at night, especially on Courtenay Place and Cuba Street. Lots of bars, lounges, coffee shops, people mulling all over the place, buskers. One group was preaching about Jesus and Christianity to everyone. I listened for a minute or two, then walked away, and was standing at a traffic light, and a girl comes up to me and says, "Hi. I just noticed you were listening to us. I was just wondering if you would like one of these." and handed be a Jesus flyer. I'm like, "Uhhh, ya, ok, thanks.", stuffed it my pocket and walked away quicklike. Haha. Another group had, what they called a circus, with fire shows (with poi's, firesticks and devil sticks" while another guy beat on the bottom of an upside down plastic garbage bin.

Back to the hostel about 9:45, read and to bed about 10:30. So tired, and my feet were killing me from walking around all day.