Te Papa Museum

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Happy 2014, to one and all, from Wellington! The city is located on the very south tip of the Northern Island, and it is the farthest south that I will go on this journey. It's a port city, with a lot of cafes and bars on the waterfront. I couchsurfed one night and stayed in a backpackers in the second night, both of them located in downtown Wellington. The feel of downtown really reminded me of New York, with buses running, stores everywhere, interesting people walking by, the whole shebang. There also seem to be a lot of artists in Wellington, so that's another parallel.



There are many things to see and do in Wellington, but the only thing I did was visit Te Papa, the AWESOME museum they have there. Most of the museum is free, except for a traveling exhibit about Aztecs or a few exhibits that were more like rides (you know, those kind where you sit in a moving seat and you watch a screen). Naturally, I elected just to visit the free section. Even so, there was still so much to see!



The ground floor (here the first floor is actually one above the ground floor!) had a bit of a walkaround outside where you could learn about caves, rocks, marshes, some of the natural flora and fauna of New Zealand. I learned that sea trees have waxy leaves to keep out the salt, and at marsh reeds are hollow to let oxygen down so at the marshes can fun filtration reactions. Then I moseyed up to the next floor, where they have a section on birds and sea life, and I saw the COLOSSAL SQUID! That was pretty neat.



Also on that floor was a cool exhibit about the geology and history of New Zealand. Turns out New Zealand, Australia, and Antarctica (and maybe a few other continents) used to be all one continent (Gondawnland, or something like that), then they split apart. New Zealand actually straddles two tectonic plates; the fault runs North-South along both islands. That's why the countries are so hilly and there are so many volcanoes and earthquakes and cool thermal vents! At one point a lot of New Zealand was actually underwater, and scientists are still trying to figure out if all of it was underwater (in which case, did all of its flora and fauna come over from Australia somehow?) or whether there were a few mountain tops that peaked out of the ocean. No one knows for sure!



After that I learned about the Waitangi treaty, which was between the British and Maori people, and about how much the land has changed thanks to the introduction to new species of plants and animals (summary: pretty much most of New Zealand is irreparably changed. Especially the north island, where it's almost all farmland now.) I also heard a cool story about the separation of The earth and sky gods, and how the world came to be from the Maori viewpoint. All in all, it's a great museum and I highly recommend it!



The weather was not great and I didn't really find anyone to hang with in Wellington, so I don't have anything else cool to talk about now! I've decided to use my two free days to go up to Rotorua, which is close to Lake Taupo in the center of the island, and see why everyone tells me they like it. It's famous for geological things like geysers and thermal pools, so we'll see!

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