2006-09-06 || 5:56 p.m.

|| Wellington ||

NOTE: It may do you well to start at the beginning.


Gordon lives in Wellington, so we know we�ll get to see a lot of the city. Jim and Juliet meet us at the airport, and they take us on a ticky tour (!!) around the outskirts of Wellington and Peter Jackson�s old studios and the water. We get to go to the shore, and I want to steal one hundred seashells for my dad. Paua shells and spiral shells and loads of limpets. I have never seen such blue water. Gordon unselfconsciously scales a rock and walks out a bit, and I secretly take a picture.

Gordon lives in a top-floor apartment overlooking Aro Street, and you can see up into the hills and out on the city and I think over the water. It�s lovely and windy and I thank Wellington for giving us such beautiful weather. We walk out on Aro with Jim and Gordon and have lunch with Bevan and Amy from Over the Atlantic.

The show is at Happy. It�s a basement beneath a Salsa bar, but sadly there aren�t any Salsa dancers to be seen. After Owen gets set up we take a bus downtown with Jim and Gordon and Andy to a seafood restaurant for dinner. We drink Australian wine. The mussels are terribly late but good. Owen orders coffee and we unabashedly throw down a few Tim Tam Slams, sealing our lifelong friendships with Jim and Andy.

Juliet has brought flowers from her shop for the stage. Gordon tapes them to a guitar stand. Over the Atlantic plays to a very full room, and I want to hug Nik and Bevan because they seem kind of nervous. Owen plays and is plagued by a few electronic mishaps, and we both pray for poor Gordon�s sake that he can overcome them. He recovers and finishes his set, singing over two women near the restrooms who won�t stop talking and don�t realize he�s making fun of them between songs.

Our last day on tour is spent walking around Wellington with Andy and Jim. We walk up Cuba Street and stop in the record store. We visit Juliet in the flower shop. We see the most beautiful Elizabeth Thomson exhibit at the art museum and sit in the sun outside drinking lolly water (I did, any way, just because I am in love with the idea of lolly water). We get back to Gordon�s apartment to pack up our Tim Tams and CDs and pilfered posters, Owen�s equipment and all the magazines I�ve amassed from all the venues and airports, and Juliet drives us out to the airport. We hug Jim and Juliet and Andy goodbye at the entrance to the terminal. Owen�s wearing his North Face jacket, I think. I�m crying.

PS.
I would like to thank the inimitable Owen Ashworth for letting me sing with him on this tour and gush all over this diary. And I would like to thank Australia, New Zealand and all the people involved in making this only the greatest trip ever. I slam this Tim Tam in your esteemed honor.

See also:
Brisbane
Sydney
Adelaide
Melbourne
Auckland

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