Flattin' It Up Karori Style

Yay for finding a place to live! We are happily settled into our great new flat in Wellington with one Kiwi girl (Jess) and one Romanian/Kiwi mutt (Crina - she’d approve the usage of the word) in Karori, a sprawling suburb west of the CBD. It’s very sunny during the day, however it gets pretty chilly at night. Central heating isn’t a prevailing installation in New Zealand. Most people use small space heaters to heat bedrooms while “heat pumps” (fan forced heaters attached to the walls) are used predominantly in the living areas. In our case, we close off the rest of the house and stay in the living room and kitchen when we turn our heat pump on to save energy. We are both looking at purchasing small heaters for our rooms, though. It’s really cold when you wake up early!!!

Our lovely flat!

Karori is great. We are on an excellent bus route – the number 3 – which runs straight into the CBD, down all the popular streets, and out to a place called Lyall Bay which is the only place anywhere near Wellington to surf. Even then, we’re not so sure how great the waves are…

Our gorgeous kitchen - dishwasher included! Definitely a step up from our last one at Wake. Also, the great thing about moving in with people: we didn't have to provide any furniture or kitchen supplies. Sounds moochy, but we contribute to the flat in labour ;)

Lucky for us, the grocery store is only a 10-minute walk down the road. The library and the pharmacy are also in the same area, and there are some cute cafes (that we haven’t yet visited) a bit further down. Being the last/first bus stop, we’re always guaranteed a seat on the bus if we don’t feel like walking! While the buses are great, they do tend to get a bit expensive – it costs about $3.50 to get into town, so while we don’t have a car, we’re still paying a decent amount for transportation.

For you people suggesting we get bikes…pshaaaaaw. Wellington is super hilly and I doubt either one of us wants to ride uphill on our way home from town. We do see lots of serious cyclists riding from our seats on the bus, though ;)

Rachel's room - yes...the mattress is still on the floor. Working on it...

Rachel's again - two doors! Weird, but awesome. Also, plenty of space for the cat to run through.

Carly's room! The bed is actually up off of the ground! Woot.

We actually cleaned our rooms for the flat photo shoot...

The conservatory - how Clue!

And our post for next time – Crina’s new kitten! There has been an addition to the flat since we arrived: an energetic little kitten named Loki that’s as cute as ever! Pictures to come!