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Published: August 3rd 2008
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Wellington harbour from our front window
Wellington harbour during our detour into Normandale Hello ladies and gents!
You've got me for this entry, and Jason's gonna give you the low down on our trip to the South Island. This one, as you can guess from the title, deals with our "day off" in Wellington. We were treating ourselves to a lie in of eight am (I know it sounds odd, but honestly, this is a lie in!). One of the highlights this morning was that on our fourth box of Nestle cereal we got the fourth character of our Batman collection (yes, we picked our cereal based on what the toys you could get where.) Neither of us could remember a time in our childhood where we didn't double up on a toy, so it was a good morning. Morning routine commences as per usual, though we both have the showers turn cold on us without warning, much to Jason's annoyance. Also slightly upsetting was that this was our first morning with no comments or private messages waiting for us when we logged on. Jason got a bit teary... Though we do understand that you're all busy, and there have been comments since, so all's well.
Looking at the weather, we decide
to attempt to visit Helms Deep again, since we didn't yesterday because of the rain. We head on up State Highway 2 and after a brief detour into Normandale since Jason can't get out of the left lane due to traffic, we finally get the turn off we want. And we speed past the quarry without realising it. We head down the entire length of State Highway 58 before finding a roundabout and heading back to the quarry. It's still being worked in and isn't open to the public, but at least we can say we saw where they filmed the battle. There had been an accident on the 2 that we spotted on the way up, so I direct Jason to take the minor roads back into Lower Hutt, which rests in the Hutt Valley. Neither of us can help but do Jabba the Hut impressions throughout the trip... We stop to stock up on food in Lower Hutt's supermarket, Pak'n'Save. It's basically a warehouse, where the stock is just left in it's traveling packaging and you help yourself to what you want. After digging through crates for food we pack up the Merc and head back to the
camp site for lunch.
Then it's time to catch the bus again, which true to form doesn't run on time. I hate catching the bus, but apparently the trains here are even worse then the buses in New Zealand. We get the bus back into Wellington, and head to our first stop, the Archives building, where the Treaty of Waitangi is kept. Along the way I amuse Jason by falling up the stairs of the bus stop... it amuses him so much that when he comes to write about it in the Journal that night he laughs so hard he begins to cry. But he wouldn't be laughing had I not managed to catch myself (in truth, he probably would be laughing harder). The Treaty was the one the Maori Chieftains signed which made New Zealand belong to Queen Victoria. Apparently there were some translation issues, as the word used for "sovereignty" was used in the connotation that the land would belong to the Maori, not to the Queen as stated. Pretty big mistake to make... We also saw the original petition for women's rights that made New Zealand the first country to give women the vote and what
Weird fish and plant contraption
The plants at the top with the water being poured on them have their water drip into the fish tank at the bottom not. There was also a exhibit of official war art from WWII that we checked out.
That done we head to the Parliament buildings, which Jason thinks are ugly. I had no intention of going on the hour long tour, so just took a few snaps. I've seen the government buildings for England, New Zealand, Holland, Ancient Rome and France now. We then head on down to the Quay and where the New Zealand Museum, Te Papa is located. It's a massive building but like home it's all free. I think since everything I wanted to do today was free was the reason Jason didn't overly mind being dragged around.
We first head into "Awesome Forces" which talks about the centre of the Earth and the movement of the crusts and how this causes Volcanoes and Earthquakes. We pop inside a mock-house where we are shaken as if there was an earthquake occurring, before heading into the X-ray section where a selection of dolphin and whale skeletons are on show (I'm pretty sure since this is a museum of one of the leading nations for a "green earth" that these animals died naturally). Turns our dolphins aren't so
cute when they're only skeletons... horrid grins. We then head to "Bush City" (stop giggling) and walked around the natural plant life of New Zealand and through some fake caves. Back in the museum we headed up to the next exhibit, "Mountains to Sea", where a bunch of stuffed animals were on show, before walking through "Golden Days" which showed how New Zealand was colonised. There were some interactive questionnaires which let you know if you were eligible to enter New Zealand during different time spans. We didn't fill the criteria at any point!
The last exhibit was "Earth, Blood, and Fire", which with a name like that, you can imagine our eagerness. It was all about how the Maori saw themselves interacting with Mother Nature, so not quite what we were hoping! We also watched a short movie which had people show case their favourite spots in New Zealand and why. Pretty interesting watching the base jumper, and meeting the born again naturalist who left Auckland after he found himself dry firing his rifle at traffic going past his window... The highlight for me was seeing a cannon that had been on Captain Cook's Endeavour when he found
New Zealand for England.
We head into town to attempt to find an internet cafe that will let us print off our boarding e-mail for the ferry tomorrow, but we have no luck finding one. We do however pass the Bucket Fountain, which if you're not paying attention to will randomly drop water onto you if you get to close. We get the bus back, both of us tested to the edge of our patience as there are two girls and an Italian boy sat in the row in front who drive us nuts with their mindless gabbiness. It took all I had not to reach up and smack the idiot child who kept talking about how the new movie of Hannah Montanna was gonna be in "4D", which apparently is "so much cooler then 3D". (For those who aren't following, the 3 dimensions are width, length, height and the fourth is duration, or time. So in fact everything is 4D.)
The bus driver misses our stops, and after casually swearing he pulls over and drops us off not far from the stop anyway. We get back to the park to find there is no power in the games room, so no internet. Jason's upset as he wanted to play some table tennis, but the room is all locked up. This also means no internet. We pop into the Maui office and ask if they've got a longer hose pipe for the Merc, as the one we've got is stupidly small. He comes round about half an hour later with a much larger one (it's hurting not to yell out "That's what she said!" here...)
So yeah, that was our day in Wellington. Probably boring to read about, but it kept us entertained for the day. And considering how much the next day was spent sitting on our arses (see next post by Jason) I'm glad we got in some exercise.
Right, I shall love and leave you, and will speak to you all soon!
Elliott & Jason
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Emy
non-member comment
heeeeheeee
4D hahahaha i can just imagine the veins popping out of your heads ping ping ping! lol sounds like an interesting day though :) Sorry i didnt leave comments for you guys :( feel really bad but havent checked the blog for a few days (house is a fucking zoo at the moment, me ro doug izzy mum and tony with a visit from dee, i was just about ready to jump out my window lol) and i really wasnt expecting there to be 4 blogs haha still tis a nice supprise :) im gonna leave it for now and go read the next one, no doubt there will be another comment after this one lol mwah p.s how did you know i would be giggling at the bush city? lol tell you what though, jason looks very interested in the bushes haha