Wellington continued

I'm not sure if it was the drinks the night before (only had one Guinness and two glasses of wine) or perhaps my meal wasn't as good as it tasted or perhaps the travelling caught up to me, but I was KO'd for most of the day after we arrived in Wellington. To this day I can't figure out what caused it, but I felt weak, felt sick to my stomach, couldn't really eat and had one of my famous headaches, which probably was causing all the other symptoms. To spare any unnecessary details, let's just say I had to stay in for most of the day. This was very unfortunate because we only had 3 days....I tried really hard in the morning to go to Te Papa Museum (the national museum) with Ziad, but just didn't have the energy to walk and so he walked me back to the hotel and went back himself. Great thing about museums in New Zealand is that they are free!! They do ask for donations to keep them free, it's great. He said the museum was really great and I did eventually get to see a very small part of it the next day. Still wasn't feeling well when he returned, so he decided it was time to go for a run along the seawall, so off he went. He came back from his run with a fresh smoothie and had considered getting me one called "Move Over Hang Over". :) I was still trying to finish the beer he brought me in the morning....GINGER beer that is. I guess that's their version of Ginger Ale. It really tastes good and has little pieces of ginger in it. I have to find out if it's sold around here (mental note made).

I finally mustered up some energy mid afternoon and off we went to the cable car which we took up to the Botanical Garden ($5 return). There are great views of the city from up there. We walked around there for a while and went into the Cable Car Museum. It seems like a popular place for walkers and I'm sure it's absolutely stunning there in the summertime. There are different walking routes/trails around the garden and some of them actually lead you back down into the downtown area. We were told the walk back down would take about an hour depending on your speed. I was still feeling somewhat weak and it was rather cold up there, so we took the cable car back down. I wanted to get back to the hotel so I could just go back to bed, but along our way we did stop at one of those many coffee shops for an overpriced coffee and so I could rest a little. I have to say that Ziad was amazing in trying to help me feel better and make sure I had anything I needed. Because I wasn't feeling hungry whatsoever, I kind of left him on his own to figure out what he wanted to do for dinner. He found the grocery store down the street and brought back dinner for himself, some chicken soup for me and more ginger beer! What a waste of a day...we had plans to go to a bunch of different sites and unfortunately never did get to them in the end because the next day we were heading to the wine country with Katherine and then it would be off to Auckland.