Windy Wanganui

This morning we woke up around 9 at the beach to a SUPER windy and cold morning (aka 65 degrees...). While it was too chilly to take a swim, we spent a good chunk of the morning lounging around, showering (womp womp for running out of all water while I was in the shower...) and checking the internet (yay for free wifi!) before heading on the road towards Wanganui. We arrived in Wanganui around lunchtime and took a quick trip to Countdown (the grocery store) to stock up supplies. From there we headed to a park in the middle of town to refill our water and get rid of our used water before heading to the information desk in town to find out about things to do in Wanganui. The woman at the desk pointed us in the direction of an "earth elevator", one of only 2 that exist in the world, which takes you to a lookout point over Wanganui. We took the elevator all the way to the top, and then climbed a spiral staircase to stand atop the building which encases the elevator...and MAN was it beautiful, but windy!!!!

They say that Wellington is "the windy city" of New Zealand, but Wanganui might take the cake on that title!! We could barely even walk!! After a few quick photos on top of the elevator, we climbed down, wandered about 100 meters, and then climbed to the top of the WWI memorial building to take a few more pictures. From there, we wandered down and into town for a while.

Once back in town, we stopped at the glass gallery exhibit on top of the information center (not really our cup of tea), before heading to the glass blowing factory one block over to check out the locally made products. While the glass blowers were all already done for the day by the time we made our way there, we enjoyed seeing their pieces on display - so beautiful!

From the glass blowing factory we went off to Cooks Gardens, with a quick stop at the Wanganui Opera House for a 4 minute personal tour (not quite as spacious or as impressive as the Sydney Opera House, but lovely nonetheless :).)

The Royal Wanganui Opera House: Photo courtesy of Google Search

We stayed at the gardens for a few minutes, mostly contemplating how we ended up in such a random place in New Zealand at this moment. Our next stop was a bar, The Vic, for a couple of beers (for Jon...) before going back to the van to find our campsite for the night. While the woman at the information desk had told us where we were parked currently is a "freedom camping site" so we should be able to stay there all night, I wasn't quite so sure. Every other place we've stayed has had huge signs proclaiming that you can stay there over night. This place had none of those. So we hopped in the car and journeyed to the park we'd gotten water at this morning. And there were no signs there either saying we could stay.

Oy.

We decided we liked our original location better (and there had already been a few camper vans there when we'd left), so we hopped back in the car and headed BACK to our spot on the river. Fortunately there was still plenty of parking available, and we settled in for the night, cooked dinner, played some cards (Jon finally redeemed himself from last night...), watched some Modern Family, and now it's time for bed :).

Tomorrow's agenda? Wanganui and Tongariro National Parks!

Jess' highlight of the day: walking around town exploring
Jon's highlight of the day: going to the top of the WWI Monument