South to North Day 9 Wellington mysteries

By the numbers

7.23kms

10,491 steps

2 rooms

1 Archive

1 library

I woke to the room being vacated again and was happy that I could stay in the room for another night. It had been a better night with a softer bed and a pillow that didn’t fall off the back of the bed. I couldn’t feel the slats either, which made me happy, but still not the most comfortable bed anyway. It was just after 6am and I had another hour before I needed to get up and was the only one there for once. I couldn’t go back to sleep so I got up and since I still had another hour or so, I could see that it was a windless day so far. Not as bad as it had been, but I could see the clouds and that had me thinking I might not have a nice afternoon. I wandered for a short walk around Bolton Street Cemetery and it was a good idea with the sun at my back instead of in my eyes with the afternoon. The cemetery is one of the oldest in Wellington and has the whose who of Wellington from the 1800s. In the 1960s it was cut in half for a motorway, much like Auckland’s Grafton street cemetery. I returned quickly as I wanted breakfast before heading to the Archives and National museum for my records. Archives opened at 9am and Library at 10am. You can guess where I started first.

I hit the Archives for the first hour as I had records already waiting and my record list was shrinking very fast as I had a page and a half to go through. I had 5 records to ponder through and it was 945 when I wandered over to the library, while I ordered another five records that could arrive anytime. I jumped into the library stuff where I found the records I was after and once I had those sorted, I ended up back at the archives going through my list that I ended up finishing just after lunch, but I was feeling the 6am wake up that I couldn’t go back to sleep. Since I had gone through my records, I was going through random files that I might want including several family tree ones. It ended up being another great day. I was using the internet to transfer files that I wanted over to my computer and external drives a I was running out of space on my phone. When you end up with 1,500+ photos then you know you don’t want to lose those nor have no room on a device that takes pictures and posts online really fast.

I was happy that my day had been done and I was ready to get the rest of my packing forted before I left the next day since I am off to Hamilton. I also read on the news while at lunch that there will be extremely strong winds as a storm was meant to hit around 10pm. They recommended ear plugs due to the noise. First time I had ever seen that in a paper. I am happy that I got my wander in as it wasn’t so warm now and the wind was stronger. I had walked up to the parliament buildings as I wanted to checkout what was near the freeway and that was a school so I went back the way I had come the morning before.

 I was looking forward to getting the washing done before I left so that I would not have to wash while in Hamilton, hopefully. I spoke to the lady at reception where I got my money changed. Up I went and into my room only to find my bed had strange things on it and two girls told me all the beds were taken. The reception the day before had not told me that I would be moving at all. Down the lift I went and found that my stuff was in storage and was told that I should have been told I was moving. I was worried about what I could be missing especially my towel with a $10 deposit. I found the towel, I found a mystery book in my main bag about Nelson Mandella. I made sure my passport was still in my bag, but my electronics like computer was on my person as they had gone to the Archives too. I had not lost anything unless I lost underwear and socks, but I don’t think I had. I was annoyed that I went from the 5^th floor to the second floor and now stuck on the top bunk. I still had my washing to do and I chatted to the guys in the room who were British and working in the country. I got the washing done and waited while it was there as it was annoying going from the 6^th floor as the lift only went to the fifth and I had to walk up ne and use my keycard. I went down once it was done and had a steak as thats what I wanted from the shop in the hostel as I thought that was a trade off from the annoyance.

It could be worse and I have no anger as its a waste of energy, I just wont stay here again as I had thought they would have changed their ways with the new ownership / name change from Downtown. Last time they were over enthusiastic is cleaning they stripped all beds and took my hire towel so I was governed by when they had a clean one and lost my bed on the bottom bunk as I ended up on the top. I think they over book with groups and expect everyone else to cater for them. I have seen groups of school kids and a group of seniors from Tauranga so maybe it is cheap for them.