Ten minutes before State of Origin started last night, the boys realised they weren’t quite ready and the streaming was very laggy, so they had to race around to ensure we could watch the game! The excitement finished after midnight, so everyone did well to be up and packed up and checked out of The Castle* by 10am.

We had intended to leave earlier, but poor little Ollie has developed high temps and an ear infection, so Beck needs to take him to a doctor for medicine to nip this in the bud before we get back on the plane. She found a local medical centre that only opened for business last week that could see him this morning, so that was our first stop.

From there we headed back into Wellington CBD to ride the cable car. We couldn’t find parking, so headed up the hill to a park next to one of the cable car stops (of which there are only three).

We then caught the cable car back down to the city, explored a little and came across a food court called Press Gallery. We bought pizzas to share there, from a hole in the wall called Tommy Millions. Luke carried them back to the cable car and up to our stop where we ate them in the bus! The boys then played soccer and frisbee in the park while the girls sat in the bus and people watched – the nearby university made this fun as people came to and left from lectures.

We then set off on the long drive to Whanganui.

This is our second biggest driving day as our plan now is just to get up the coast to the glow worm caves and then Auckland. I am responsible for tonight’s accommodation: the Whanganui River Top 10 holiday park……where I had booked “deluxe villas”, and we found them directly opposite the cheapest cabins in the park which attract a different kind of clientele 😬

The park manager recommended a local restaurant called Caroline’s Boatshed for dinner, which was lovely and we enjoyed really good meals. The poor waiter dropped Tim’s beer all over Tim as he brought it to the table and was very apologetic. And suddenly the washing bag I managed to empty at Wellington is full again! 😩

Jarrod, Tim and Zac are in a separate cabin tonight, so Luke and Ross went to play cards with them for a while while the rest of us stayed in our cabins for the night!

* That is its official name on Airbnb, and this photo shows why…..